I went back through some old post the other day looking for past gems that I’ve cataloged when I ran across an interesting one from Steve Pavlina. It’s title: 10 Business Lessons from a Snarky Entrepreneur.
While the ten lessons are interesting - and oft written - I was most moved by number 5:
Fail your way forward. Recognize that Ready, fire, aim is superior to ready, aim, aim, aim. Straightforward trial and error produces better results than endless vacillating. If you’re afraid to make decisions and act on them in the face of ambiguity and uncertainty, get a job. Failure’s lessons are essential to success.
In my opinion, failure should be a the top of any list around running a business. How else do you learn and grow if you don’t make mistakes? Sure, business plans, mission statements and marketing strategies are all important. But without failure, how can you possibly find success?
Sounds odd, huh? Yet the truth is we discover what works - what’s successful - by failing.
Kids get this clearly because it’s how they learn. They try to do something a certain way only to learn that it’s not the way to do it. Ever try to do something for a four year-old? They’re simply not going to let you. They want to do it all themselves. And if you try to show them the ‘right way’ before they have a chance to figure it out, often they get upset.
Business is no different. Except that most often, we’re different. Somewhere along the way we create ideas in ourselves that we can’t fail. So we stumble around, learning to walk never wanting to fall down. Yet, as with a child, how do you ever learn to walk if you don’t fall.
The key isn’t falling, per se. The key is in getting up and trying again. And that’s the gift of failure. When something doesn’t work, you have an opportunity to try something new. In other words, you have the chance to learn, to change and to grow. And with business, that’s all important. And that’s why I call it - failing your way to success.
So how have you failed your way to success?
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How’s this for failure: When I was in clown class (yes, clown class) we had an exercise called The Ring of Fire.
One person stood in the center of the circle with 15 others watching. You had to stay in the circle until you could make every single person belly laugh at the same time.
I’ve never looked at failure in the same way since. I’ll try nearly anything once, just to see if it’ll get me the result I need.
Don’t believe me? Try me.
cory huff’s last blog post..Her Husband Plays Xbox too Much
Ah, we did a similar exercise in improv. What we did is having someone in the center of the circle. That person can walk up to any one in the circle and try to come up with weird of funny ways to say “I love you” to make the other person laugh. The person on the outside have to try to keep a straight face and say “I love you too, but I just cannot smile.” When someone on the outside cracks up, he switches the center person out, and repeat. Now that’s kind of off topic.
“Ready, fire, aim” is kind of like playing Battleship. You just fire aimlessly first and then you’ll gradually figure out where you should be firing.
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So true Wendy. Entrepreneurship requires a lot of trial and error. I wish the error part didn’t come with a price tag.
To me, the money spent in trying things is the hardest part. Wish I could get some of that money back and spend it on stuff I know works now.
Thanks for the inspiring post!
I call it learning what doesn’t work.
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Thank you Wendy for the reminder that it is not only natural to fail but a necessity. But I agree with Aruni, I wish it didn’t come with a price tag.
LaGina’s last blog post..Outdoor Lighting Perspectives - Warranty
Wendy - this is so true. Just when I feel like I’ve made every mistake in the book, something else goes wrong. You name it I’ve screwed it up and not just little things.
But, it’s not a failure if you just get back up again and keep trying.
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Hey Dawud - sorry. I didn’t notice your name until I pressed submit.
Cath Lawson’s last blog post..Business Partnership - Is It Financial Suicide?
What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
Nothing is ever a total failure; there’s an infinite number of facets through which you can analyze a situation. The key is recognizing what not achieving the specific goal taught you…and then applying it to your future endeavors.
You just have to give yourself permission to park your ego at the door and learn. Alas, sometimes that’s quite tough indeed….
Enjoy,
Barbara
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I never thought about failing although I have, more importantly I have never failed to get up and try it again.
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We had our first lesson in marketing right before we even got our first customer over five years ago.
A year before the company I worked for went bust, my wife and I knew that we had to do something fast. We had to take control of our lives. After lots of talking, we finally decided to start a home based food delivery business. We had ZERO experience but we knew one thing for sure, and that was my wife was a fantabulous cook.
Anyway, our first flyer was beautiful. It was a masterpiece in clever marketing copy and design. We distributed close to five hundred of them around our neighbourhood and what did we get? Nadda. Zilch. Not ONE call. We took a critical look at our flyer and realized that our flyer was possible TOO fancy for our potential customers. After all, the ones who would need our service were housewives (many of whom had very little schooling), and busy mothers who didn’t have time to read our fabulous copy.
And so our next batch of flyers were simple. It read “Good Food. Cheap. We deliver”. And the phone calls started coming in!
Lesson : Keep it simple, stupid (me… not you)
Andrew