Failure is but a data point in time
Dylan Jones
Data consultancy growth accelerator ? myDataBrand Founder ? Creator: Data Quality and Data Governance Leadership Forum (21K+)
Many data consultancy founders are sceptical about LinkedIn and content marketing as a vehicle for attracting clients.
Perhaps you feel this way too?
Frustration with a lack of activity and engagement around your content can be a primary concern.
"It just doesn't work, our articles attract zero engagement, LinkedIn Groups are a spam-fest, and we never see real buyers engaging with our content".
When you're faced with this scenario, you likely arrive at one, or both, of the following conclusions:
At this point, many begin to experience the brutal truth of running their own data consulting or software firm:
Running your own data management business may become the most challenging undertaking you will ever experience
There's simply no point in sugar-coating it and telling you that magical pixies will escort fairy-dusted prospects on the back of golden unicorns straight to your doorstep.
Building your data firm from scratch will become your personal Everest, testing you in unimaginable ways.?
In short, things get very real, very quickly:
You may have read the books, listened to the podcasts and studied the articles - but the truth about growing your own business is often seldom told...
It can be one swine of a slog.
And of all the summits you'll need to climb, grabbing the attention of your ideal client may be the toughest.
Why?
Because it forces you to reset your relationship with failure.
An early lesson in failure
Many years ago, in my late teens, I tried my hand at door-to-door selling to build up some cash reserves before University.
I was hopeless.
If you think selling to CDOs and CFOs is challenging, try pitching car security to factory workers arriving home after a ten-hour shift assembling parts on a production line.
After endless doors were slammed in my face, I returned, dejected, to the 'head office' (or transit van as it was otherwise known).
The owner of the business, my father, laughed when I explained that I probably appeared too young and untrustworthy to sell car security.?
I thought that I needed more age on my side. Who would buy from a teenager?
And perhaps smarter clothes, maybe a new suit and tie – yes, that was it. I needed to dip into company funds to buy a nice suit and shiny shoes.
"Hmm, it could be that", my father said.?
"But it's more likely you're just crap at selling".
(Which did wonders for my confidence, as you can imagine).
"What am I doing wrong?" I asked.
"It's easy; make them feel like they're missing out".
And there, 30 years before the rise of?FOMO, I learned my first rule of sales:
Social Proof sells.
As I studied my father and his business partner more closely, I saw how their 'Sales Enablement System' took shape.
Bernard, the 'Director of Operations', would wander across the road, knock on the first door in the street and explain to the owner that they were selling a car security solution in their road today?
The solution was etching registrations onto car windows to make it harder for thieves to sell the car by swapping number plates - trust me, it was a hot product in the 80's.
Bernard would offer the first house in the street the solution at cost on the proviso that others in the road could come across and look at the finished product.
My father, 'Head of Sales Enablement', would be poised at the opposite house across the road pretending to knock on the door.
Bernard then gave his homeowner a sense of urgency - 'My colleague is about to knock on your neighbour's door and offer the same deal, it's first-come, first-served - are you in?'.
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Bernard would soon be applying the etching on the car of his first 'customer' of the day.
My father would then knock on the house opposite.?
The owner would appear, and the sales pitch would begin:
"Good evening, we're in the street today helping your neighbours protect their cars from theft; we're actually applying our solution over at house Number 1 right now."
Cue a short wave to Bernard and a perplexed homeowner over at house No.1.
The homeowner, the one with my father, now looks across at his neighbour, intrigued.
We are now at FOMO level 1.
My father would explain the etching approach, present some industry research to validate the technique and invite the homeowner over the road to look at the handiwork being applied at house number 1.
We are now at FOMO level 2.
The prospect looks at the quality of the etching and the smug face of homeowner No.1 – who now knows they got the best deal.
Homeowner No.2 then says, "Go on then; I'll have it if they've had it".
FOMO level 3 and a sale is made.
And this was the pattern they repeated on every street, town after town.
At this point, I would like to say I mastered the system and became a consummate salesperson, smashing all quotas at every firm I was hired at for the next twenty years.
But alas, it wasn't meant to be. I knew sales wasn't my chosen profession, a career in data management soon beckoned.
It would take me two decades before I created enough sales mojo to sell my high-end consulting solutions; such was the negative connection I had formed with sales.
Or, more correctly, my association with sales?failure.
Failure is but a data point in time.
Because I'd 'failed' at sales in my teens, I carried that failure through my twenties and thirties.
Only when I studied countless sales books, podcasts and courses that I learned a valuable lesson:?
There are no failures; merely data points to analyse and review.
For example, after lengthy discussions with a recent client, we concluded they were charging far too little for their services. So they dramatically increased their fees.
And they got zero pushback from their next client.
They could increase their income by 100%, simply by changing two letters on a proposal.
But what if they had failed, and the client had said, "No, we're not paying that fee" and walked away.
That scenario would have been an event - a data point, but not a failure.
So often, we take these 'events' and assign meaning to them.
"They rejected the proposal; therefore, they've rejected me".
"I failed to sell my service; therefore, I'm a failure".
Truly successful business owners see these events for what they are, opportunities to critique and learn.
Effective business development isn't about getting discouraged when a prospect passes you over for another competitor. Stop, analyse what went wrong, and re-focus for the next opportunity.
And if you're struggling to make sense of why you're struggling, then get some help. Don't keep experiencing the same events or data points without getting an outside opinion about where you're going wrong and what a potential resolution should be.
If you want to improve your likelihood of success, stop associating negative emotions and meanings to the myriad of 'failures' you're about to experience as you launch and grow your data consultancy.
Just see each one as a data point.
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