Roy Williams says, “If you’ve never failed, it’s either because you’re frightened or you lack imagination.”

How does your team deal with the reality of failure?

Think of failure as a beginning. Failures are important. How you deal with them determines everything. It will shape your future.

Prepare Your Team

I recommend you tell every employee one important rule and remind them about it often. This rule establishes a powerful positive tone and functions as a safety net. It builds the sense of team. It solves problems.

You may think it sounds overly simple. Once you see it in action, you’ll discover its effectiveness.

The rule is: No one is allowed to panic alone.

We all make mistakes. It’s inevitable. We may feel stupid and start beating up on ourselves. Our first impulse may be to cover it up or fix it before anyone notices. That can make a bigger mess of things.

This simple rule states you MUST grab someone, anyone, to panic with you. You will be surprised when that random person you grab has a different perspective and a potential solution that helps you solve it more quickly than you would have done alone.

Build Your Team’s Strength

Your employees will learn to rely on each other and feel the strength of teamwork. It’s exhilarating to discover a failure wasn’t that bad of a mistake. There is always a solution.

Roy Williams also says in Sept 2, 2019, Monday Morning Memo, “Important lessons are learned from failure, not from success.”

Marketing Mistakes

Marketing mistakes can be as simple as a typo or misspoken word. A bad review from a client because an employee was rude. Inadequate research. Misunderstandings. Giving wrong contact information. A failed logo redesign. Failure to adapt to market changes. The list goes on.

Think of Mistakes as Detours

Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg explain in their book, I Think I Swallowed an Elephant, “Success is not about perfection or a flawless streak… Detours are not mistakes. They are part of the process… Mindset makes success possible. It keeps you steady when strategy falls short. It reminds you that success is not about never falling. It is about getting up, learning from the detour, and moving toward your North Star.”

Receiving Negative Feedback is Not a Mistake

There is an important difference between receiving negative feedback and making a mistake. When your marketing engages emotions, it is becoming effective. When you succeed in being effective, some are going to react negatively. In fact, you aren’t successfully moving the ‘who-cares-meter’ unless you do receive negative responses. Receiving negative feedback is not a mistake. It is recognition that you are effectively touching people’s emotions.

When you work with a Wizard of Ads Partner, your marketing will receive attention. Nine out of ten people will feel connected with you. There will always be that tenth person who is irritated when they can’t ignore you. You will receive some negative responses. Congratulations!

You’re not being ignored. Many will think of you first and feel best about you.

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