What Mistakes Have You Made?
Are you making enough, or do you need to make more.
This can apply to your business in general as well as your sells and prospecting journey. I thought this quote was a great way to start the conversation.
I liked this quote for this conversation because often times we think of mistakes as a bad thing. It means something went wrong and we had to correct it. Which can be true. But there is another side to that coin that I want to focus on here in this post. There are two key points we’ll focus on.
You have to try to make progress.
When you’re growing your business and generating more leads and prospects you will have to try new things. That should be pretty straightforward, but sometimes I find it helpful to state the obvious. If you are not a great sales or marketing person this can be really scary. Heck even for those that are it can still be scary. After all we all enjoy the comfort of what we know. As we push ourselves to try new things it will be uncomfortable and we will fail. You will try an ad campaign that does not work. You will try a sales pitch that falls flat with a new lead. That is okay. That is part of the process and you have to try those new things to continue moving forward. If you do not try anything new you will continue to get stuck with the same results. Therefore, as you grow continue to try new things. Reflect on what works and what does not. Adjust for the next time you try something new and continue to challenge yourself. Another recommendation I would have here is connect with other small business owners and see what is working for them. Even if they are in a different business, it could still be very helpful for you. Just because that ad campaign is not normal for a small boutique, does not mean it will not work. Engaging and learning with others will be a key part of your continued success. No matter how big or how small your business.
You will fail….that is ok.
We touched on this just a tad bit in the above section, but I wanted to double click here. Just like in the quote I am saying that you need to have failure, you need mistakes. That means you are learning and growing. Now you want those mistakes to be small for the most part. Think move fast and break things, but also move fast and try new things. Obviously if you fail too big you could lose your business, so do not bet everything on double zero here. Put some on black, some on red, and keep some in your pocket. What I really want you to take away from there is that some things will not work. In our social media fueled world we often only see the successes of the others. What we do not see is the 5-10 years they spent building to that point. We do not see all the rejects that they worked through. So I want you to remember that failing is ok, it is part of the journey and an important one at that. So when you do fail or make a mistake remember that it is part of the journey and it is okay. Now that you know that does not work you and reflect, grow, and move on. Think about Thomas Edison’s quote about 1,000 ways to not make the light bulb. You just found one way that your sales or marketing did not work, now go find another way to try, it may not work either, but you will be one attempt closer to what does work.
So Remember:
You have to make mistakes and fail to keep moving forward.
Reflect on your mistakes and failures to learn from them.
Failures is okay. Everyone has it in some form or fashion.
Thank you for your time reading this post. It really does mean a lot that you shared your time with me. I hope you found some nuggets of wisdom in these words. If you did please share it with a friend. Also I would love your feedback or comments in the section below.