Warren Buffet has stated, “risk comes from not knowing what you are doing.” I tend to agree and also believe that there are deeper definitions that can help us improve our wealth strategies, product development, and life decisions in general.
There is a guarantee that comes with the article. If you read it and implement the principles discussed, you will make better business decisions and be happy about it.
Our ability to have great business plans, due diligence assessments, and increase our long-term wealth profiles, can be attributed to understanding risk on a deeper level. Yes, for those who know me as an energizing speaker in leadership, mindset, the red carpet empress, and media geek, they may know the technical and wealth strategy side of what I do, or they may not. Truth is I also work behind the scenes, I work with a number of corporations, private high net-worth clients, and entrepreneur groups worldwide to help assess their risk landscape, automation solutions, and more as part of my engineering background. I enjoy both aspects of my life, and wanted to use this article as an opportunity to share some insights from my left brain. I operate on both sides on a daily basis, and it helps me to have creative solutions to highly technical issues, thus the term genius is used from time to time to describe my recommendations to my clients. It is both humbling and pretty cool. But, back to the risk-based accelerators.
What we will focus on today is how we can move the needle to increase our impact, monetization ability, and legacy, by digging deeper into risk. With that being said the first few questions are below:
- Are you a problem solver?
- Do you enjoy finding new and novel ways to do routine initiatives, or do you delight in not having to think, so you do certain things the same way every time?
- What is your risk tolerance?
Based on how we answer these questions, this will determine our ability to utilize the concepts of risk-based wealth innovation at its core. With my over 40 years of experience in various industries across approximately 40 countries, I have developed several online and in-person educational modules expanding the understanding of innovation, monetization, and risk through my I.C.E. (Innovation Centers of Excellence). There are elements of the program that have been launched in several universities and organizations across the U.K., Turkey, the United States, and Africa. Teaching the next generation how to be problem-solvers is no easy task, but is very rewarding as it helps us to have creative thinking embedded in the DNA of our future leaders. Some simple techniques that can be used to improve our wealth strategies is by having a great due diligence process. Being able to ask the right questions helps. Based on question #1 above, this can help us to evaluate the person/contractor/companies’ ability to identify and solve their own problems. Knowing how to ask question #2 by adding on the right follow-up questions will also help in understanding the mindset and drive of those you are considering working with or investing in. Question #3 on risk tolerance is also a great one. We all actually have a Risk Personality, did you know that? Well, it’s true. More can be found on that and risk overall at ReduceInvestmentRisk.com. I’d love to break the concepts down further for your specific scenario if you would like, just reach out.
Next, to improve our wealth strategies, we must first look at a few key words: Wealth. Innovation. Strategy. These are three words that are not often utilized together, but should be.
The age of advanced technology and artificial intelligence is expanding at rapid speed. Wars, rumors of wars, politics, health pandemics, and more, come to disrupt our life and business strategies. The question is, what are we doing to continuously prepare ourselves for diversification? This comes directly back to our questions above about problem solving and risk tolerance. We should be diverse enough in our portfolio that all of the aforementioned disruptions would have a low risk of causing us issues in the long term. My niche is in innovation and a unique way of utilizing risk assessments to guide decisions in our small businesses, large corporations, and in life. I teach the techniques and also can be available for teleconferences, and or in person meetings as needed. Some of our assessments of risk can have 4, 10, 20, 50, 150 or more line items as part of the evaluations. So, even though you may have taken training on this, it is still suggested to consult with a risk expert such as myself, to be able to go deeper. This does not guarantee higher returns on your investments or due diligence, it does however give you more insight. This goes back to Warren Buffet’s statement about risk and not knowing what you are doing. Information is power. Having a robust section in your business plan and subsequent financial reports and annual reports, puts you in the top 30% of companies that understand risk and mitigations at a deeper level. Several surveys show that 70% of companies do not have enterprise risk plans. This is very risky for the company, their clients, customers, and end users. This means that the company could fold at any moment, if something happens that has no detailed mitigation plan. I have seen company after company have issues due to this.
Over my 40 years of experience, I have been personally contracted to take a look at software development plans, business continuity, cyber security plans, technical roadmaps, product development road maps, project management plans, marketing strategies, tactical plans and more across numerous high tech industries and single-entrepreneur companies. Some answers come back with documents for me to review, and some with a two or three line email with answers. The email answers mean, there are no plans, no depth, it is likely a very high risk situation and you should not invest, or do business with that company. I have had people appreciative of this level of review, some in dis-belief, even one man cried about what he thought his consultant had done, and it was sub-par. My thought is, we are over seven billion people either troubleshooting, figuring things out, or being frustrated by not being able to. Knowing risk mitigation and accelerators can help you have peace of mind because you know more. This can help you investor better, do better due diligence, go for the high risk high return deal, and have a little more peace of mind about it.
I love risk-based assessments and sharing with clients how to utilize them in their businesses and investment decisions. Here are a few more questions for you:
- Do you want to attract more investors?
- Do you want more confidence in your investment decisions?
Your hard-earned money shouldn’t go another day being put toward foggy deals. The facts matter about risk and what you don’t know can hurt you, your business, and your financial gains. I have developed a system used by my clients called the RiskFAX Score™. There are various ways to deploy the methods, and collect the data to benefit you best. This way of looking at risk can also drastically change your way of thinking in life, not just for investment purposes.
I am stating that 2024 is the year of F.I.T. (FOCUS, INTENTION, TENACITY). As a business owner, what can you do to be F.I.T. related to risk and improving our wealth strategies?
Over 900 million people worldwide have been diagnosed with anxiety and depression. Let’s not be a part of that statistic due to what happens to us, just learn from it, and do better. Remember, money disputes are right up there for being a key reason for court cases. Let’s improve our wealth strategies by understanding and mitigating our risk, and go a step further to have our company do an assessment and issue a RiskFAX Score™.
