I’ve been working in some form of business development function for my entire adult life. From sales admin/researcher as a junior, through to strategic commercial positions, and now as COO of Omnitude in the EMEA region.

An observation that I have always made is that those people who make it their mission to focus on solely hitting their financial targets usually miss, and if they do achieve, they do so sporadically and/or burn out quickly.

Put simply, they are focussing their efforts in the wrong area.

Money and financial reward is mostly a by-product of success. A by-product of doing something well or right for a third party.

If you go out of your way to service a customer or client, your reward will be greater than if you simply hit a financial target. You earn respect, maintain a relationship AND get your hard-earned invoice or a well-deserved sales order.

Since moving into the world of Blockchain, I have inevitably been caught up in the world of cryptocurrencies, and the behaviours and attitudes I see from a large portion of token sale contributors, investors and want-to-be day traders, are identical to that of the sales person mentioned above, and they are most likely to fail the quickest.

This is happening for one simple reason. Greed.

The last few years in the crypto world has been volatile. Epic rallies of growth in token values followed by sharp and sometimes long and painful bear markets.

Those who identified an opportunity for a quick profit in these markets are now totally spoiled by the previous performance in the ‘glory days’ and are subsequently dismayed at newer token performance.

Let’s take ourselves back to the ‘real’ world for a second. You invest your hard-earned money into a pension or 401k. You will hopefully get a return year on year, usually a single figure percentage, but it won’t be the x2, x5, x10 performance you have seen from ICOs and token sales. So why bother?

As I write this, we are in one of the most aggressive downturns for the entire crypto space since I have been working in it. XRP down nearly 90% on its all-time high. ETH hitting its lowest point for the year, BTC falling below $6000. What’s going on!?

Markets fluctuate for a number of reasons, but the crypto market is incredibly sensitive.

My point is a simple one. Those that have had quick and easy wins, now see this space as unfruitful and are angry and upset with losses being made.

Now what if we ALL took the approach of focussing on fixing problems, helping people, driving change in the world, what would happen?

I’ll tell you what would happen. Those real businesses behind the coins and tokens would see a steady increase in value. A slow, yet positive change towards market stability, and increase in fiat being invested into the space. And perhaps best of all, allowing the technology that underpins it all to demonstrate its true potential to the non-believers.

It is not all about running at the margins and big gains in the trading space, it is about driving the adoption of the technology first and then proving to all the naysayers that what we have is credible, viable and profitable.

Yes, there will be highs and lows just as there are across other markets, but stability, regulation and legitimacy will prevail.

Put simply, it needs to, otherwise all we are left with is money-centric decisions and greed. And unsurprisingly, as if by magic, the market will flush that out and leave a lot damage in its wake.

Solutions and business performance first. Profits and markets second.

What are your views on this?