How to Deal with Disappointment and Failure
Today I’m going to talk about disappointment, baby steps, and celebrating small victories.
When it comes to being an entrepreneur, what you are doing, building a business, launching products, becoming speakers – are all enormous tasks. I have done all of them, with great success, epic failures, uphill battles and lessons that I still experience.
I can say – that if you haven’t experienced any of the above, you aren’t going outside of your comfort zone, stretching your boundaries, and taking massive risks. If any of the above ring true for you, congratulations you are building a business not a hobby.
First I will address expectations.
– You are on the stage and your close bombs.
– You attend a trade show and get no conversions.
– You put up a website and it takes longer than expected.
– You launch your product, and only a few sales happen.
Every single one of these is normal. All of us have these stories, but guess what, you only hear about the awesome successes in most cases, and it skews your expectations.
I will use an example – you put on a teleseminar.
You invested in a product that was sure to make it a success. You have everything in place, your offer, your websites, the call, and people even show up – but no sales.
There are so many reasons that can happen – that you can’t feel like a failure, or that the venture wasn’t a success – your action needs to be to find out how to make it better the next time. That’s what you are always striving for. Lessons that lead to future success.
Second I will address celebrating small victories.
It is really easy to beat yourself up over something that you did, that did not meet expectations. It can lead to depression for some people, giving up, changing their course, all things that didn’t need to happen. We are taught life is win or lose. But that’s not true at all. Life is a series of baby steps and quantum leaps, with a side order of mission, vision, purpose, connections, goals, persistence and getting help.
Most of you have gotten the help, but you haven’t implemented Small Victories. It is such an important topic I have it in my book. Read the whole chapter on that and add it to your routine. (http://bitly.com/31daysmmm)
So here is an example of celebrating small victories in a task called ‘put on a teleseminar.’
1. Congratulations for doing it – it’s a big task to put on a teleseminar – and they are an art form.
The close is critical – and that is a skill in itself. Teleseminars have a precise formula but even if you follow that, and the presentation formula precisely – many other factors can still affect it, so celebrate you did it.
2. People attended, and stayed to the end. Well done!! that too is a massive accomplishment – I had 13 people on my first teleseminar. And I bought the formula at that time (Dec 2006 – Alex Mandossian), implemented it, and luckily with only 13 I had 7 sales at $3000 making it a $21,000 day.
But I also had the EXACT audience I needed, and for a long time I felt like that was a failure because I only had 13 on the call. So celebrate each step. I should have celebrated 13, and I definitely celebrated the results, but still felt unaccomplished because of the ‘comparison factor’.
People around me were getting 1000s on their calls, and closing 6 figures – so that is the other thing I will add to this – improve on you, from where you were and now are. I was comparing myself to people that had been in the industry for years – I was brand new – they had massive lists and followers – and so comparisons to others can prevent a victory.
3. You don’t know who showed up really – to be able to determine why they didn’t buy. If I bomb – it’s not because of my message, it’s usually because I’m not in front of my ideal audience. Since on a teleseminar you don’t know who shows up – you can’t determine what went wrong – YET!
Here is what I do ALWAYS after something like this – I survey them – they are the only ones that have the answer and the key to help me improve for next time.
And I would invite to a free strategy session for everyone who fills out the survey – and it only takes 3 minutes to fill out
1. Full name
2. phone number
3. email
4. What was your favourite part about the teleseminar
5. What was your biggest takeaway
6. What prevented you from taking advantage of the offer I made
DO that – then you have some real answers to work with.
When one of my clients got feedback from her audience – it became clear what happened.
They were there and only they can answer #6.
So send the survey to everyone that attended, and if you can, personally connect with anyone who stayed to the end.
Then – take them on a free strategy session. They are hot leads.
Then look forward to hearing the results so you can make the changes for the next one.
Tracy Repchuk
International Bestselling author of 31 Days to Millionaire Marketing Miracles
PS – Get the support you need with Message to Millions Mastery
