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GO IT ALONE!

one of your existing services is unnecessary, you are not locked into an expensive lease or long-term commitment. A plug-and-play infrastructure is inherently flexible.

There is an additional reason to consistently focus on maintaining flexibility as a core priority: It is possible that though everything is working well one day, a fundamental aspect of the business may have to be reinvented the following day, as the result of a competitor’s actions.

MAKE YOUR OWN LUCK

Chance favors only those minds which are prepared.

—Louis Pasteur

Louis Pasteur said that chance favors the prepared individual. Indeed, the more we plan for multiple contingencies, the more likely we are to be “lucky.” How often, for example, have you put a spare tire and jack in your car, and then declared yourself to be lucky when a flat tire doesn’t destroy a car trip because you can change it immediately? And how often have you failed to take such precautions and declared yourself unlucky when you ended up waiting on the side of the road for hours for assistance?

Luck has unquestionably played a major role in the success of my own venture, Speed Anywhere, but also, I paved the way for luck to head in my direction. Here are two examples:

• Speed Anywhere was originally envisioned and launched as a consumer service. While it was succeeding in this arena, I received a call out of the blue from a business-to-business telecommunications provider who had seen my Internet-based advertising and asked me if I had considered generating referrals for businesses. I responded that I did not know if my marketing techniques would work in selling to businesses

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