A major disappointment, or a lesson to profit from? A Hard Personal Lesson on Failed Accountability in Business

A major disappointment, or a lesson to profit from?

A true story. . . how failure in executing good ideas can create a future of continuing lost opportunities in any market.

by Aaron Schulman, Internet, Business, Marketing & Copywriting Strategist

I have to be honest. When I found out, I was fairly disappointed, and upset at this lost opportunity.

I was also not in the mood to swallow my pride and accept the cliché that I could “learn from my mistakes”, though I knew I would face this ultimate truth in this situation.

How about you?

Do you ever hear that self-correcting voice in your mind that says, “yeah, but you can learn a valuable lesson and grow from this.”?

Sometimes, I wish I could grab that voice and wring it’s neck . . .

I don’t always want the valuable lesson.

At times I want to spare the lesson in humility and have the opportunity in my pocket, feeding my business, my family, our future, not someone else’s.

Can you relate to this real and raw truth?

And then, sometimes I humbly swallow the truth and allow it to change me more readily.

Either way, whether I initially react in pride or humility, the Truth is still going to win out and do its molding work in my life, and I never win against the Truth, but continually learn it is always best to let Truth win against me: lost opportunity or not.

So here’s the true story.

A few years ago, I got into a creative season of purchasing domain names related to major key words and informational product ideas that could be developed as legitimate products to bring value to people from my area of expertise and return revenue to our business.

Stay with me here, because this story surfaced some real principles that can apply to anyone, and hopefully I’ll learn from this.

Sound execution of a good idea is still king . . .

So here’s what happened.

I had a season of a decent and consistent increase in income, and kept having wild ideas of some fairly brilliant product ideas wrapped around domain names that could potentially bring great traffic.

And

we know that traffic + conversion equals revenue for any business.

I am sure you have heard that simple but powerful formula before, and it doesn’t just pertain to Internet businesses: it pertains to any business.

Anyway , do you remember playing LPs (records) that got scuffed and would forever skip over and over at a certain place in the songs?

This was what happened to me in the product launch process.

My mental record got stuck in a groove, and continued to skip in the pre-product launch phase, which is the source of this major disappointment.

I got caught in a creativity loop, and though the essence of the ideas had a hint of genius and real marketplace potential, my complete lack of several critical elements (most likely blinded by my pride and sometimes fantasia-like optimism), made me realize I was a real dunce and needed growth and accountability in many areas.

As the story goes,

I purchased many domain names for a period of time with a “pie in the sky” mindset that was grounded far more in creativity and fantasy than in reality (ouch), which not only cost money that could have been put to better use, but valuable time that could have been better stewarded to bring about more ongoing revenue to reinvest in something that actually worked.

My Reality Check # 1: I had to let many of the domain names go. . .

I had to let many of the domain names go back to the marketplace- because of ignorance and lack of funds and the assumption that I would never have time to develop them.

Luke 14:28 was really kicking me in the teeth at this point: "For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?”

And to add insult to injury, ultimately (and you might have guessed it by now) someone else purchased one of the domain names I released and built a quality and effective informational / educational product around it! More salt to my wound of ignorance.

Now he’s generating revenue on a domain name that I used to own!

Needless to say, I was greatly disappointed.

And I am sure you could understand. . .
It was as if someone plucked the gold right out of my dream and put it in his bank account.

Yet, I knew I just missed it, big time!

And this was hard to swallow: a major flaw in my character, knowledge and humility was at the heart of my disappointment – it was my own fault.

Essentially, that domain name that cost me a measly $10 a year was now being used to sell products for another business owner. . .

And if that was not enough humiliation through truth and reality, here’s the second big gulp that I had to swallow:

a measly $10 a year investment was now giving another guy business that I could have had, which leads us to. . .

My Reality Check #2:
I let the guilt of one bad decision lead me into making another bad decision. . .

After my first reality check, I had let several domain names go out of an act of self-incriminating foolishness.

I let the guilt of one bad decision lead me into making another bad decision. . .

I had regretted spending so much time stuck in the creative process before any product launch that I over-reacted and began to let go of many domain names out of self-imposed guilt and shame for being a poor steward in the first place.

This was also a foolish move.

I had no exit strategy for the use or failure to use the domain names.

The least I could have done was parked the names and allow them to generate a little potential traffic and perhaps a bit of advertising revenue. . .but no. . .that would be too wise and practical for me. . .

I know I am beating myself up quite a bit here, but hopefully you can avoid making some of my many mistakes and grow from some of the many nuggets I learned from this experience – at my expense – not yours.

The least I could have done was to take my ideas before some solid counsel, a potential investor, or some other practical, every day, fundamentally wise strategy. . . .

But instead I just released many valuable domain names back to the wild marketplace without any deep consideration for the potential lost future opportunities.

And this brings us to another valuable point in sales and marketing:

More people statistically will act more often out of a motive to protect valuable things based on the fear of loss than they will on the potential of gain.

Let me restate that for you:

The Fear of Loss is often times a more powerful motivator than the opportunity of gain (but not always)

A major case and point is the global insurance industry.

Many businesses thrive because they are great at providing insurance against some kind of loss,

Better yet, many businesses with slightly inferior products thrive over those with superior products because they are far more effective at communicating those benefits than their competition.

And therein is a great opportunity for a question to ask about the marketing and sales message of your product:

What losses does your product or service protect people from experiencing?

This can be a bit of a stretch for some products, but with enough persistence, you can discover marketing and sales benefits that might be lying dormant right under your nose.

And so, as I continued to brood about this double act of foolishness, I realized that for many reasons, I had sabotaged the potential of many of the valuable ideas before they even had a chance.

All the while, in the back of my mind, I could hear the voice of someone near and dear in my past saying about himself, “I shouldda’ bought that farmland way back before it became that long strip of commercial real estate. I coulda been a millionaire!”

So, even though it is “water under the bridge”, and there is no use “crying over spilled milk”, we can certainly learn how to improve so that our future chances of letting good water go under the bridge or allowing milk to spill is greatly reduced for future endeavors.

And if that were not enough, the lessons continued to stack against me, proving to my pride that I have so far to grow to be more effective.

Yet my continued growth is not the most important issue: my desire and appetite and support system for continued growth are far more important because they will fuel and protect my growth.

Without the desire for growth and accountability, I will never realize my potential.

Proverbs 24:6 says,” . . .for waging war you need guidance, and for victory many advisers.”

Additionally, Proverbs 27:17 states, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”

It became clear to me that I will forever need continued counsel and accountability to help focus my desire for growth and effectiveness in the marketplace.

This is why accountability in one’s mission is vital to the success of the mission, and I know I am not alone on this.

All humans have a tendency to major on the minors at times, and we often swing from one extreme to another in our self-discipline and practices, yet we can often curb the severity of the behavioral fluctuations and improve our results if we simply have solid accountability in our mission.

Though we all have different areas of creativity, we all have creativity flowing in our veins, yet creativity without boundaries can be useless as I have learned that

One idea well executed is worth infinitely more than a million creative ideas never put to a plan of action or accountability. . . .

Perhaps you have lived with the frustration of having many ideas but seeing less fruit than you believe is possible for you in the marketplace.

Perhaps it is time to take your performance to the next level.

I know that without the current level of accountability (both personal and professional) I would not be anywhere near where I am today – because it takes love, patience, care, and others who have a vested interest in me to help me become what I was designed to be, and to perform at my best in life. Otherwise, some level of mediocrity is almost guaranteed.

Yet loving accountability, especially in business, is hard to enter into, and can be very challenging to sustain, yet simply by finding the right relationships, making myself accountable and vulnerable, and opening myself to growth has been ultimately rewarding for me, my family, my business partners and our clients. And professional, loving accountability in the marketplace is one of the best forms of business and consulting insurance any professional must have.

Perhaps you are ready to take your performance to the next level?

Let us know where you are, and what you are seeking in terms of your personal, business, and impact growth in the marketplace.

PLEASE GIVE YOUR RESPONSE HERE

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About the Author
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Aaron Schulman is a JVP with Long on Life. His expertise involves Internet, Marketing, Business and Copywriting Strategies to increase traffic and conversion for better revenue. He is married to his loving wife, Jen and has 2 lovely daughters. He enjoys golf, helping others, strategic marketing and sales systems, writing, music, and life