What Does ‘Risk’ Mean For Your Business?

I guess it depends on whom you ask.
If you ask me, I’d tell you it means the difference between a client engaging me to interview a client and craft a case study and not doing so.

If I ask you, most likely you’d put it in a context related to your own business. That’s normal. It’s where you live; it’s how you make your living.

Let’s ask the editors of the more popular dictionaries about the term, shall we?

Dictionary.com:

1. exposure to the chance of injury or loss
2. to venture upon; take or run the chance of
3. to put oneself in danger
4. to imperil or jeopardize

Webster’s II- New Riverside University:

1. to expose to a chance of loss or damage
2. the possibility of suffering harm

These are accurate of course. But it seems that most business owners would prefer a working definition they can understand more readily; one that applies to their unique business situation.

Here the one I’d put forth:

Risk: Anything that causes a prospect or client to hesitate or reconsider their intent to do business with me.

With that working definition, you can begin to identify many elements that might come under that category. Simply ask yourself, “What could currently cause prospects or clients to reconsider doing business with me?”

Here are a few of the responses I came up with for my own business:

• the lack of an entry-level product or service
• the absence of a clear sequence in my client path
• the absence of a core issue report / book

What about you?
Please feel free to list your responses in a comment.

Tags: Risk