I remember going to a Tony Robbins seminar over a decade ago. One of the main points that stuck with me was that ‘massive failure equals success’. I think Mr. Robbins was emphasizing the importance of taking action, not ignoring ignorant actions or what caused the failure in the first place.
When you are establishing your online platform and beginning to engage the marketplace with a blog and using various social media tools, what are the first steps you should take?
Remember that you do not need to be an expert to give useful advice.
When you think back to the big breakthoughs you had in your life, did you learn more from your successes or your failures? Could that failure help someone else? That’s a blog post!
And, who invented the light bulb? You might suggest, ‘Thomas Edison’. Edison, while holding over 1,000 patents and learning hundreds of ways to use failure successfully, did not invent the incandescent light. He learned how to make it commercially viable.
Social Media, blogging, and SEO are still relatively new tools used to reach the marketplace and engage potential customers.
Have a willingness to take chances and take action. Your brand will withstand the minor mistakes along the way as long as you have three principles in place:
Learn from the Experts
- Success leaves clues – use the tools and suggestions from the experts
- Even the experts make mistakes and many of them will freely admit them
- Even if you become one of the experts, there is always someone from whom you can learn
Serve Others with Compassion (give more than you take)
- Re-tweet, post, and share others’ messages
- Promote others’ ideas
- Give without asking in return
Use Your Failure and Failure of Others as a Guide
- I made a mistake with an e-commerce client recently by trying to spread their ad budget too thin. I can use the lesson learned to take a more firm approach to ad budget planning.
- Many years ago I had a manager who said, ‘if it’s not broken, it’s time to break some glass’. While I respect his enthusiasm for trying to improve an already good product, I learned more from seeing the destruction that followed…I will avoid that.
Like Edison, take Others’ Successes and Improve Them
1). Listen to what the marketplace is wanting.
2). Engage your target market by interacting with them in meaningful conversation.
3). Then brand your message with a targeted approach. Where is your target market hanging out? Serve them and keep learning how to do that better.
4). Who does what you are doing? How can you improve upon their approach?
5). Be persistent and NEVER GIVE UP!
