No shortcut to success

Pay now or pay later. Either way, you’re going to pay.

By Jason Cohen

Date published: 8/20/2009

“Earn millions using my secret Internet shortcuts” sounded very promising from the blaring TV pitchman at 2:30 a.m. I was awake at this horrible hour nursing a terribly swollen knee that I earned falling down while running on a wooded trail. More on this later.

What sounded even more appealing was that no prior experience or knowledge of computers or the Internet would be required in order to earn these shortcut millions.

I have a pitch of my own: There is no shortcut to success.

Let’s relate this to a business. You can become more efficient at servicing or producing something and, yes, this efficiency allows you to increase your margins. There’s no shortcut to these gains. The hard work had to be put in somewhere in order to realize the gains. This could be in the form of extensive research, paying someone for expertise, or the costs of time and money when trial and error experimentation is employed. Have you noticed that UPS trucks only make right-hand turns? The routing software intentionally routes them to only make right-hand turns. It’s faster, so they can make more deliveries in the same day, since you can make a right on red. It’s safer, meaning less chance of injury or downtime for accidents, since you are not crossing traffic. It’s a shortcut earned through intensive research at UPS to gain efficiency.

I know all sorts of shortcuts to handle Northern Virginia traffic. But all of these came by spending time reading a map, investing in a GPS and getting lost. All of the shortcuts came at a price of time or money and therefore an earned investment.

I read with dismay several weeks ago about a couple moving to the Fredericksburg area who had been “ripped off” by a moving company. Who’s really at fault? The company may not have acted in the client’s best interest and is certainly paying a price in terms of negative publicity. What happens the next time someone Googles that moving company?

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Date published: 8/20/2009