When I first started my entrepreneurial journey over sixteen years ago I was really naive. I didn’t know much about running a business. What I did know is that I was tired of working for someone else and doing things their way.
I did have a skill that was definitely marketable. I had been a graphic designer for many years at that point and could easily help clients with visual tasks in both print and web based jobs.
But what I didn’t know is how to sell and market my skill set.
For years, I spent time investing in myself through training. I read books and took courses. I hired coaches and worked with others. I pretty much consumed just about as much information as I could.
Finding the perfect way to successfully market myself and sell my services was the exact thing I was looking for, but what I didn’t know was something very important.
In order to actually know how to get better at something, you have to get out there and start doing it! Just start to take action. It’s OK to make mistakes and fail, because you will for sure suck at doing what you’re attempting to do.
This is where I failed for many years. I was in search mode but not practicing. Why you may ask? Because I didn’t want to fail. I wanted and needed to succeed. But in order to reach success, you need to fail and get back up and try again.
The trick is to not make the same mistake over and over again. The faster you implement a task, learn from the mistakes you make and try again … the faster you will get good at something.
This is the secret behind sales and marketing.
Get out in the marketplace, execute and review the results. More importantly, never (ever) quit. If you get knocked down, try again and again until you succeed.
Some of the most successful business owners in the world failed many times before they succeeded. A few examples are:
- Thomas Edison created and failed 10,000 times when creating prototypes of his electric bulb before succeeding.
- Sylvester Stallone was rejected 1,500 times when trying to sell his script and himself for the movie ‘Rocky’.
- The founder of Pandora.com approached investors 300 times before he got funded.
- Richard Branson launched companies 400 times before he founded one ‘out of this world’ (Virgin Galactic).
Moral to the story is that being an entrepreneur is hard today. Tomorrow it will be worse. You will fail, but rise up because the day after tomorrow will be sunshine.