Learning from mistakes and failures

LEARN from MISTAKES, LEARN from Failures, You might fall, but you will get up ?? BUT, no one tells us how to fall down, how to fail, or how to make those "mistakes".

Here comes the concept of DRY RUN!! Dry run is : you’re not really doing that work but you’re preparing the paperwork and pretending you are doing it. Example : you are discussing a million dollar business, to ship goods worth a million $ to an overseas client. Dry run: Draft a dummy price code, make it clearly draft and ask the client to send a draft PO. Then you send a draft pro forma invoice "Is it okay for your organisation and bank to wire transfer Advanced money" and then you draft a packing list, draft customs invoice and MDS and check with CHA is it good to go and find a shipper and negotiate prices. The CHA customs house agent might come back with changes in invoice description of goods HSN codes, need for this and that certifications, approvals, licenses ..... Well in the dry run you can afford to "fail" or make "mistakes" actually you are actually trying to figure out the way. You should also talk to those who have shipped / their experiences.

Then comes WET RUN : you tell your client I am going to ship something as a trial shipment to you ... (by now business discussions would have progressed) This $10 wetrun should done with the same care as the million$ shipment. Streamline communications with the client, customs clearing agents and iron out anything that might go wrong when the real shipment happens.

NOW you know really how to go-about shipping that $1 million worth of goods. You have already done all the mistakes and you have learned from it and the chance of your failure is very very very low, but it’s still not zero. You have to be ready for any kind of hiccups, any kind of failures or a small little mistakes that can completely spoil the business. Every paper and catalogue should be on your mobile phone - you never know, you might receive a call in the midnight "found something which looks like a battery and the shipment cannot go". They’re going to open it..... "Please don’t open. It’s a plastic column but there is an aluminium foil around it" Here is the catalogue and the drawings. Things can still go wrong .. Murphy's Laws apply to everybody. Please do take insurance coverage and may be do a part shipment first with 1/10th of goods to make sure everything is alright before shipping the rest.

Basically learn to do mistakes that you can fix, do mistakes that you can afford to take, gently fall down and getup with a smile.

If some one says learn from mistakes, ask them how to do those mistakes!

All the best