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Hi there.
Speaker:It's Sue.
Speaker:And thanks for joining me for tips and talk day.
Speaker:These are bite-sized topics that I pull from community questions and
Speaker:things that I'm observing in the world of handmade small business.
Speaker:If you'd like to submit a topic,
Speaker:DME over on Instagram at gift biz,
Speaker:unwrapped failing at failure.
Speaker:Yes. I want you to fail because too often,
Speaker:what I see is our fear of failing prevents us from
Speaker:getting anything done.
Speaker:If you're a first time product creator and you're wanting to
Speaker:monetize your product,
Speaker:or you're doing something new that you haven't ever done before
Speaker:this concern about failing often paralyzes you where you're to the
Speaker:point where you do absolutely nothing.
Speaker:Another thing that I often see happen is that people think
Speaker:that there's only one way to do something.
Speaker:And if you don't do things at that exact way,
Speaker:then you're wrong.
Speaker:And that's just not the case.
Speaker:There are so many different ways of accomplishing whatever your goals
Speaker:are, whatever you're trying to do.
Speaker:But this thinking that I'm going to fail.
Speaker:If I don't do it,
Speaker:the exact perfect right way is actually false thinking.
Speaker:The third thing that I'll see the mindset is that if
Speaker:I make a mistake,
Speaker:if I do something and it doesn't work,
Speaker:then the whole project is off the table.
Speaker:You know,
Speaker:like if you wanted to start a business around whatever your
Speaker:handmade product is,
Speaker:and you go to one craft show and you make a
Speaker:zero sales,
Speaker:which those of us who have been in the industry for
Speaker:a while,
Speaker:know that this can happen.
Speaker:This doesn't mean that you can't start your business,
Speaker:making a mistake around.
Speaker:One thing does not mean you're a failure.
Speaker:So yes,
Speaker:I want you to fail at failure.
Speaker:It's going to keep you from being paralyzed and not taking
Speaker:action. It's going to release you from this idea that there
Speaker:is only one way,
Speaker:one way,
Speaker:and one way only,
Speaker:and that if you make a mistake or you don't see
Speaker:the results that you're looking for,
Speaker:that there's still a path forward.
Speaker:This is not where you close the book and be done.
Speaker:And all of your dreams just drift away.
Speaker:That is not the case.
Speaker:The real true story is that success comes from multiple failures.
Speaker:One of the best ways to look at this is to
Speaker:reframe the word.
Speaker:And so,
Speaker:instead of saying that you're a failure or that you failed
Speaker:at something,
Speaker:why don't we say we're doing experiments.
Speaker:We're testing something out and seeing if it works again,
Speaker:I'll use idea that if you're starting your business,
Speaker:you're going to test the product out,
Speaker:to see if there's a market.
Speaker:And if you go to your first craft show and you
Speaker:don't sell a thing,
Speaker:the biggest fear for anybody at their first show,
Speaker:of course you,
Speaker:aren't a failure.
Speaker:Maybe you just need to tweak your product a little bit.
Speaker:It should be a different,
Speaker:it should be a different color.
Speaker:Maybe your signage didn't explain exactly what the product was.
Speaker:So there's a little bit of confusion with people who are
Speaker:coming up to your both.
Speaker:It's not a failure.
Speaker:It's been an experiment.
Speaker:You tweak things,
Speaker:and then you move forward.
Speaker:Now, same thing.
Speaker:So if you're just starting out and you're testing your products
Speaker:for the first time,
Speaker:or if you're introducing a product into your repertoire,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:the whole catalog of products that you offer,
Speaker:I want you to fail at failure.
Speaker:I don't want you to think about this as a failure.
Speaker:I want you to think about these things that you do
Speaker:in your business as tests,
Speaker:experiments, so that you can gather information kind of like your
Speaker:old science class,
Speaker:high school experiments,
Speaker:right? So the results of that experiment then lead you into
Speaker:what your next action will be.
Speaker:Your next test will be right.
Speaker:That's how I want you to think of things that you
Speaker:try out for your business.
Speaker:And when you think of it this way,
Speaker:when you allow yourself to fail at failure,
Speaker:all the fear goes away because you're experimenting.
Speaker:You're trying things out.
Speaker:You don't take it.
Speaker:Then as personally,
Speaker:I also want you to feel like you can fail often,
Speaker:because the more you learn about your audience,
Speaker:what they like,
Speaker:what they don't like,
Speaker:what sizes of your product,
Speaker:they like best what price point your audience seems to gravitate
Speaker:to all of these things,
Speaker:just make you a better business owner and the decisions and
Speaker:the offerings you put out are more aligned with your audience.
Speaker:At first,
Speaker:you guess you have no choice.
Speaker:You have to guess at what it is.
Speaker:You put it out there,
Speaker:you observe what happens.
Speaker:You analyze the results you tweak,
Speaker:and then you put it out there.
Speaker:Again. I don't call any of that process of failure.
Speaker:I would call it an experiment and then you learn move
Speaker:forward. And the other thing about thinking of it this way
Speaker:is you can laugh at mistakes.
Speaker:If you something out that you thought was going to be
Speaker:a winning best seller product,
Speaker:and you sell two of them only after giving a test
Speaker:enough time,
Speaker:you can laugh at it and say,
Speaker:oh my gosh,
Speaker:like silly me.
Speaker:I thought that was going to be so great.
Speaker:And nobody wants it.
Speaker:And you can laugh at it because it has nothing to
Speaker:do with you personally.
Speaker:It has to do with testing tweaking,
Speaker:moving forward by being a failure at failure.
Speaker:It's those actual steps where you come to be a success.
Speaker:Michelle says no,
Speaker:or low expectations,
Speaker:less anxiety.
Speaker:Yeah, you're exactly right.
Speaker:I'll tell you what I did way back in the day.
Speaker:Some of you who follow me,
Speaker:might've heard this story before,
Speaker:but I used to have a company called basket time.
Speaker:And I was focused on corporate accounts,
Speaker:not one-off,
Speaker:you know,
Speaker:individual accustom,
Speaker:but more of the larger corporate accounts.
Speaker:As I was building up my designs,
Speaker:my very first designs,
Speaker:there was one basket that I loved so much.
Speaker:So this is a perfect example of putting things into what
Speaker:you like versus what your customer wants.
Speaker:So I made this basket that was this beautiful Willow basket
Speaker:shaped as a coffee cup.
Speaker:Okay. This was going to be my breakfast basket.
Speaker:And I thought it would be good for people who were
Speaker:coming in,
Speaker:who were speaking at events or when a client wanted to
Speaker:give a gift to a customer and have it delivered to
Speaker:their house.
Speaker:Like it's a nice Saturday morning,
Speaker:Sunday morning basket.
Speaker:And it had pancake mix syrup,
Speaker:a Scotty mix coffee.
Speaker:You can imagine what it was made up with was gorgeous.
Speaker:I loved it so much.
Speaker:It was beautiful.
Speaker:Didn't sell.
Speaker:I think I reordered the pancake mix three times because I'm
Speaker:just like,
Speaker:oh, people haven't really seen it yet on the website.
Speaker:Maybe they just didn't look at it or they didn't need
Speaker:it yet.
Speaker:I would put it in my brochures.
Speaker:I would talk about it.
Speaker:Nobody wanted it.
Speaker:And it took me probably three rotations of buying cases of
Speaker:pancake mix to finally figure out that this experiment didn't work.
Speaker:Do you notice how I said I am not a failure?
Speaker:My basket business is not a failure.
Speaker:It's that?
Speaker:Okay. So learn this take feedback that that design was not
Speaker:something your customers wanted and move on and know better for
Speaker:next time.
Speaker:That's what I mean about failing at failure.
Speaker:Allow yourself to fail.
Speaker:Don't feel like you're a failure.
Speaker:If things don't work out because this is the way you
Speaker:walk the path on multiple failure stones,
Speaker:to get yourself to that big success zone.
Speaker:Share with me some failures.
Speaker:Everyone's had them.
Speaker:And honestly,
Speaker:if you don't have the failures,
Speaker:you'll never get to that point of success.
Speaker:It's just not going to happen.
Speaker:That's a wrap.
Speaker:I'm a get to the point kind of girl.
Speaker:And this is what you can expect from these quick midweek
Speaker:sessions. Now it's your turn.
Speaker:Go out and fulfill that dream of yours.
Speaker:Share your handmade products with us.
Speaker:We want them,
