Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

Optimistic Marketer or Pessimistic? Why Not Be Both?
Optimism can kill your business. Sound harsh? But it's true. Many people try to run their business on pure optimism. They keep a positive outlook that everything will turn out all right. And they hang onto that positive outlook until their business is beyond hope of ever succeeding.

The key is in the way you apply optimism and pessimism to your business.

You want to be optimistic about reaching your goals. You need to have your goals be well thought out, measurable, and attainable. They shouldn't be pie-in-the-sky daydreams, but specific targets that you can reach—step by step.

Once you have those kind of goals and a plan to reach them, you need to be optimistic about succeeding. You'll need optimism to keep you going when things go wrong.

But the problem comes when when business owners let their optimism cloud their view of the steps that are taking them to their goals.

There's a saying in the military that "a battle plan becomes obsolete the instant you engage the enemy." In other words, the best thought out plan of attack can never anticipate every single variable will come into play as soon as the other army starts reacting to your plan.

The same goes with your marketing plan. The instant you start to carry it out, things are invariably going to go differently than you expected.

That's where pessimism becomes an essential tool. When you have only one set of plans and reality doesn't follow them, pushing on as if everything is going according to plan with an outlook of, "Well, things will still turn out all right," is deadly.

Optimism won't change the unexpected setbacks. You need backup plans—and backup plans for your backup plans—to counteract the negative effects of the unexpected.

Be optimistic about reaching your goals. But be pessimistic about the steps it will take to get you there. Expect that some, or even all, of the steps you planned for getting to your goal won't go as you plan. Anticipate all the things you can think of that can go wrong and have alternatives in mind for if they do.

But what about those things that take you completely by surprise? If you've planned enough alternatives, you'll have enough options to choose from and the flexibility to combine them in ways you never would have thought of until the situation inspires you to take a creative approach.

Now keep in mind that there's a big difference between being pessimistic and being fatalistic. I'm not saying you should approach the details of your plan with a mindset of, "This is never going to work; I might as well not even try." That's fatalism. The kind of pessimism you want is the kind that says, "Now how can I fix it if this goes wrong?"

Be an optimist in looking at the big picture. But be a pessimist in planning all the unexpected what-ifs that you'll invariably face. Sure, being both optimist and pessimist sounds like a contradiction. But it's the approach that successful businesspeople have taken throughout history.
Jeff