Have you ever heard the advice “fail fast?” I’m sure you thought “What the heck???” It’s not what you are thinking. Fail fast means get to the answer in your learning cycle quickly and move on. Here’s how it works.
Think about it like goal setting. You achieve each mini goal and move up towards the big goal. The sooner you earn each goal, the sooner you get to the big one. Do you initially achieve each smaller goal? Probably not. The smaller ones may or may not have to be achieved to get to the bigger goal. So instead of stopping still in trying to achieve that one smaller one that may not be holding up the bigger goal, fail at it as fast as you can and move on.
So what does that mean for you in your business? Learn how to maximize your learning cycles and minimize the time before you succeed. Try new ideas more quickly. Instead of one or so a month, try one or two a week and really see what you can learn from them. Then take that learning and apply it.
So, if you find you are talking with a customer and you know they aren’t going to buy, keep trying, but move on more quickly. Try smaller cycles. Have 100 cold calls? Make 10 and use all you learned from learning cycles to make that ten really count. Then move to the next. As you get through that list of 100 you will get more success because you learn from the mistakes you make or failures you have.
As you try to use what you’ve learned, you will fail using them. But failing at them fast means you learn even more. Because, really, you do learn more from your mistakes than you do from successes.
So fail fast, learn more, and then succeed!
Want more? Check out our 7 top resources for small business success!