Failure Sucks…but it’s a good teacher
Over the years, I have had great success at providing marketing and sales processes in many companies and organizations. I’ve also had my share of failures along the way and I have to tell you, I’ve learned more from my failures than I’ve ever learned from my successes. Failure builds character, success reveals it.
So, in an effort to help you learn from my failures instead of your own, I want to share with you some lessons learned from failure.
Trust is hard to get and easy to lose…
You have to earn the right to speak into someone’s life. Your portfolio helps validate your capabilities but that doesn’t necessarily build enough trust to grow your business. Trust is critical in your work and personal relationships but it is not a given. You have to work at building trust with your potential and current customers. Trust is hard to get but you can lose it in a heartbeat if you say the wrong thing.
A good example is bringing politics into your discussion. If your client is on the “other side” you’re dead meat – if you lose the trust of a client, you might as well kiss them goodby.
People do things for their reasons, not yours…
Obvious, right? Then why not develop your marketing around your client’s needs instead of trying to convince them that they need your whatever? When was the last time you looked at your customer base to determine what works (and what doesn’t with your customers?
If you approach your marketing from a service mindset everything you do will have a better chance of succeeding. We serve in order to sell, we sell to serve, and we serve to sell again.
When the team has a losing season, they fire the coach…
If you’re a business leader, how well do you coach your team? The buck stops with you so take responsibility for your people. If you think the only thing you owe your employees is a paycheck, you’re losing business. Your people depend on you to provide everything they need to be successful. If you do, they will succeed, if not, you can go out of business! Besides a paycheck (or company benefits) you’re people need encouragement, inspiration, motivation, and love. Yep, love. Whether or not you love your people is seen in your actions and felt in their hearts. Take a fresh look at how you treat your team and if necessary, fix it.
If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done…
You’ve no doubt heard the definition of insanity; doing the same thing and expecting different results. There comes a time in your business where you cannot grow until you change. What you’re doing can make you a fine living, but if you want more, you must find new ways of skinning the cat. Take time out to rethink your approach, priorities and results. The answers for growth are there…but you have to GO there to find them.
I hope this short list of lessons learned from failure is helpful to you as you think about how to grow your business. I have many more failures to share but that’s for another time. In the meantime, take a fresh look at your business through the looking-glass of your failures…I guarantee you’ll learn something.
The MarketTech Blog
Big Deal Marketing Group has been delivering measurable results since we rebranded our operations in 2013. Everything we do is about you and your organization’s growth. Our goal is to provide both a superior customer experience and tremendous value for our customers.
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