Tired of ads? Subscribers enjoy a distraction-free reading experience.
Click here to subscribe today or Login.

I’m absolutely convinced that millionaires can be some of the absolute worst people to get financial advice from. I can almost hear a few of you yelling at me now: “Who the heck is this guy to say millionaires don’t know what they are talking about?!”

Fair point, let me explain:

Last week, I delved into the concept of luck and its impact on success. This week, I want to discuss survivor’s bias and how it skews our understanding of what leads to success. This topic is complex, and my word count here won’t allow for an exhaustive exploration, but it’s crucial to understand its implications. By focusing only on successful video campaigns and ignoring failures, we risk drawing misleading conclusions that can impact our strategies and outcomes in this competitive field.

Survivor’s bias essentially means that we tend to focus on the successful cases and ignore the countless others who didn’t make it despite doing similar things. We see the strategies and behaviors of those who succeeded and assume those are the keys to success. However, we overlook those who did the same things and failed, which can lead to misleading conclusions.

Why is survivor’s bias so important? It can distort our perceptions and decisions. For instance, if you see a successful video production company and try to replicate their methods exactly, you might still fail. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you did something wrong. It could simply be that the successful company got a lucky break that you didn’t.

Survivor’s bias can be particularly insidious because it can cause you to give up when you shouldn’t. You might look at others who failed and think, “If they couldn’t make it, neither can I.” Over the years, I’ve seen many video production companies with ample funding and talent go out of business despite doing everything right. It’s easy to conclude from these examples that video production companies don’t work, but that’s not true.

Companies do succeed, and companies do fail, often due to factors outside their control.

The point is, you can’t always rely on the success of others to determine what will work for you. Just because an idea or method hasn’t worked for someone else doesn’t mean it won’t work for you. The world might tell you that your idea is doomed, citing numerous failed attempts, but that doesn’t mean your approach won’t succeed.

So, how does this apply to video marketing? We should use a combination of tried-and-true methods and new, innovative strategies. We need to experiment and see what works for us. While it’s important to learn from others’ successes and failures, we shouldn’t treat their experiences as absolute truths. We should also remain open to ideas that haven’t worked in the past. Sometimes, tweaking a failed concept can lead to success in a different context or time.

There’s nothing more frustrating than someone who succeeded due to luck and believes their success was entirely due to their actions and insights. They might offer advice with an air of authority, but it’s essential to

remember that their experience might not be universally applicable. Success stories can be informative, but they should be taken with a grain of salt.

In conclusion, don’t let survivor’s bias dictate your approach to video marketing or any other venture. Learn from others, but don’t be discouraged by their failures or overly influenced by their successes. Keep experimenting, keep adapting, and most importantly, keep going. Your unique path to success might look different from anyone else’s, and that’s perfectly okay.

I hope this discussion on survivor’s bias provides some food for thought. Remember that while understanding luck and survivor’s bias can help shape your strategy, your perseverance and willingness to innovate are what will ultimately lead to success, and if you need help with that, I’m an email away! jon@contentionmedia.com.

Jonathan Edwards is the owner of Diamond City Studios. Reach him at Jon@DiamondCityStudios.com.