There is no failure, only redirection
Channel: George Kao
Date: 2015-08-14

Next time you earnestly pursue a project, and still "fail", I hope you remember this:

*There is no failure, only redirection.*

A Loving Universe is redirecting you towards another idea, another method, another experiment.  A higher purpose than "getting good results" is your own learning and experience, your own growth in virtues such as courage, wisdom, optimism. 

One person that "failed" many, many times was Thomas Edison.  He said this in one of his interviews:

"I speak without exaggeration when I say that I have constructed three thousand different theories in connection with the electric light, each one of them reasonable and apparently to be true.  Yet only in two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory."

And when he was working hard on creating a new storage battery (which ultimately created more wealth for him than the light bulb) his colleague recounted this:

"I learned that Edison had thus made over 9,000 experiments in trying to devise this new type of storage battery, but had not produced a single thing that promised to solve the question. In view of this immense amount of thought and labor, my sympathy got the better of my judgment, and I said: ‘Isn’t it a shame that with the tremendous amount of work you have done you haven’t been able to get any results?’ Edison turned on me like a flash, and with a smile replied: ‘Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won’t work.’"

Remember Edison's curiosity and persistence.  Work diligently and see no failure at all, but only redirection.  See it all as experiments.

Let's apply this to marketing.

One of the painful aspects of marketing is when you get no feedback from your audience.  You put something out there and... silence.  You don't receive praise about what went well, nor suggestions about how you should improve. 

I'm here to tell you that in marketing, lack of feedback IS feedback.  You are being asked by the market to try something different... To make another experiment.

Here are things to test:

Timing
(For example, I've discovered the hard way that in my business, July/August are the worst months to make a offer.  Many in my audience are on vacation or otherwise not thinking about building their business.)

Offering 
(What problem is being solved, and what solution is being provided through your services?  What format, and what's included and excluded?  You can "test' your offering by doing Niche Interviews: http://j.mp/1JhjXM5 ) 

Audience
(Maybe you need to try reaching a different age range, or interest group, or stage of development, or profession, or gender.  Look at what other services are being sold that's similar to yours, and pay attention to what audience they are aiming to reach.)

Pricing
(Is your pricing similar to other offerings in the market?)

Messaging
(Including headline, how your service is described, how you explain the ideal client's problem.  You can also test your messaging through Niche Interviews.)

Branding
(This could mean many things, but here I am focusing on the visual elements of your marketing.  You can test such things by posting onto your Facebook Page a photo album of visual brand ideas and asking your audience to vote on their favorites.  Recently I asked my fans to vote on which personal photos I should share on my upcoming new website.  Here's how I asked: http://j.mp/1LccXR4 )  

Credibility
(What makes you credible to provide this service?  What is your ideal client looking in terms of credibility?  Do you have testimonials?  Here are additional credibility indicators: http://j.mp/1zDW1Lv )

Remember that Edison had to try *thousands of times* to find the solution that really worked -- and he has changed all of our lives.  Look at all of your launches, campaigns, all of your marketing as little experiments.  Test the factors above.  Learn a little something from each experiment, to make the next one better, or at least different.  

Ultimately what is more important than the "results" in your business is your own learning, experience, and personal growth!

***

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