Zig Ziglar once said, Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street. I couldn’t agree more and his words underscore the advice I find myself giving to marketers again and again these days:
Don’t be afraid to fail.
Our industry is rapidly evolving, but we can’t lead the way as change agents if we’re frozen in place, paralyzed by fear. Many marketers are hard-wired to be visionaries, and perhaps that’s part of the problem. We see the end game, and so we want to get there fast. We take on too much too soon, feel overwhelmed and then crumble when the grand design starts to erode. Or we start out small, only to pull the plug at the first sign of trouble.
There is a better way. Try this:
Evaluate, execute and evolve.
In other words, always have the end game in sight, but put a first goal out there, too. Take smaller steps, and learn as you go. Nothing proceeds according to plan 100 percent of the time, so expect to have a few failures along the way. Use those failures to learn. I’ve been on the front lines of marketing for more than 25 years, and I can tell you quite sincerely that for me, the best lessons have come from things that initially didn’t work out as expected.
In fact, here are six key marketing lessons I learned when the chips were down and I was grappling head-on with a detour (as Zig would say):
1. Marketing teams need to be driven by strategy, not by boxes.
2. Everyone is in marketing.
3. Marketing drives business revenue.
4. Keep it simple. I’ve made the mistake of over-complicating programs, messages, etc. Often, I see other marketers falling into the same trap, turning the straightforward into something too complex. If you want effective and optimized results, remember that the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid) applies every day, every hour.
5. Failure is an option.
6. Don’t take monkeys that aren’t yours.
This post was previously published on Forbes.com.
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