I’ve been thinking a lot lately about failing. No, I’m not off my meds or anything like that.
Then I saw a blog post by Seth Godin (big-deal marketing guy) about breaking your marketing to make it better.
And it all started to come together for me. . .
The intersection of failing and breaking stuff may be just the thing that makes a difference in your marketing for 2010!
I’m seeing so much hesitancy on the part of small business owners over changing course as things slow down because they’re afraid to fail. Not fail, as in out-of-business fail. Fail, as in “sh*t, that didn’t work” fail.
Message: It’s okay to fail, as long as you fail small enough that you can learn from it and live to fail another day, and fast enough so you get to a solution in time.
Take it from someone with a ton of experience failing, it’s just part of the process. Fail quickly, fail inexpensively, make refinements and move forward. To success.
Seth Godin talks about how artists “break things” (conventional wisdom, the status quo) and how great products break things (the iPod broke brick and mortar music stores).
Message: It’s okay to break things because they are probably broken already. . .
Breaking things may be the most important thing you can do. Things like your website (are you converting enough traffic into leads?). The marketing strategies that got you where you are (customers are a moving target — are you where they are today?). Your message (are your sales telling you your message has worn out?) Your core customer definition (sounds almost unthinkable, but if your customers have stopped buying go find people who are!).
Message: Your 2010 may be strewn with failure and breakage! We can only hope! 🙂
BTW Seth Godin’s new book is out today, Lynchpin: Are You Indispensable? I bought it on Audible.com and will be listening and commenting in the weeks to come, so, stay tuned. By the way, he’s promoting the book entirely through his online social network; nothing paid. I’ll be watching that as well.
