$25k in Less Than 24 Hours: Lessons Learned

The Triumphant Part:

We raised over $25,000 in less than 24 hours

to help World Central Kitchen's Restaurants for the People.

Although our little group of collaborating coaches' page has closed,

you still can DONATE HERE.

That was the triumphant part.

The flub part.

Thanks especially to those who tried the link I sent on Monday. Even more thanks to those who bothered to tell me my link was broken.

This fund-raiser was a challenge task for our first-ever-working-together team of 8, with a very short deadline, and, in all the excitement, I made a rookie mistake.

Have you ever made a rookie mistake, even as a seasoned professional? I thought so.

Anyway, working between my phone and laptop, my "keyboarding" failed.

Also, my proof-reading failed.

Also, I didn't even think to test the link.

And thus I sent you a dud.

After-action analysis:

In my career as a working engineer, we learned that most failures are the result of multiple things going wrong, not just one bad decision.

For example:

• Unexpected assignment. Tight time pressure.
• Anxiety.
• Some new tech.
• Some copy to write. Excessive word-smithing.
• A team who got stuck in writing the copy by committee. (Some should have known better)
• Loss of focus.
• Lack of clarity.
• And my personal regret-

Hanging back from taking a leadership role because I didn't want to come across as pushy.

Conclusion: It was messy.

But you know what? Life is messy. Business is messy. Relationships are messy.

There were ten teams of eight. We moaned and groaned and muddled and diddled and finally got some kind of message out, through emails and phone calls and texts, and notes in a bottle, for all I know.

That's part of what our coach wanted us to see. Even how much we hated it, we did it.

I personally flubbed the dub. And we still collectively raised over $25,000 in a day.

Are you wallowing in perfectionism, or bogged down creating the perfect website, or resisting something new, and occasionally, making a rookie mistake?

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Lorette Pruden, Ph.D. coaches, consults, speaks and writes on the transition from working for others to building a successful business. After nearly 30 years with Mobil, Lorette entered the world of self-employed. 

Lorette has helped hundreds of small business owners, sales professionals, entrepreneurs, and community leaders grow their businesses and manage that growth since 2000. She specializes in the Formerly Corporate—so many small business owners who’ve worked with her come from a corporate background that she finally wrote the book on it. Formerly Corporate: Mindset Shifts for Success in Your Own Business.