I’ve been lucky to get involved in a lot of highly exciting projects over the last 15 years. If there is one thing that I can be thankful is the learning experience from all of them. If there is one piece that I am proud I have developed extensively is the multidisciplinary part. I am delighted with the fact that I have immersed myself in a lot of industries. Dozens. In the recent years, I decided that this was a good thing, but I have the feeling that I did not fail to the full extent with most of my endeavors. Let me explain.
I worked hard to blame myself for things out of my control. To the extent that I’ve developed a professional depression around the fact that many of my brilliant (not very modest) ideas did not see the light of the public stage. The real reason: lack of consistent budgets. Not large budgets, but consistent.
It is my fault that I did not better choose my clients but damn if I am going to take the entire blame. It is not about my fees but my customers not seeing intelligently the branding exercise. With all the asks and preparations. Do you understand that you need constant budgets of X? Yes. Do you understand that you need patience? Yes.
What happens? 85% of my “clients” end their contracts after three months not because lack of results but because they cannot sustain operationaly the partnership. I can make them legally go with the contract terms, but that does not help the relationship.
Again, I don’t mind somebody not understanding their cash flow, but it frustrates me that the campaigns/ concepts do not take off. Did I do a good job trying to understand the market? Did I succeed? While the projects don’t have time to evolve, I cannot count them as successes. Did I fail? I think yes but… this is why I call them half-failures.
I would love to fail (fully)
At least my learning experience would be extended. Marketing is not an exact science. It is a progressive one. I need to fail for you, dear customer because I am smart enough that I can get that failure monetize positively.
I know for a fact that if I fail, I would be much closer to a bigger success. The size of success is in direct correlation with the number of failures you allow yourself to encounter.
Do you have the strength and energy to fail 57 times, the success will be 8 times more impactful then it would be after 11 times.
The only rule: fail while aiming for success. I hate fake failures. I love smart failing.
