The biggest mistakes people make

People ask me what the biggest mistakes people make are.

Business mistakes that is…

The biggest mistake is being too hesitant.

Acting as if one only has limited shots. “I’ll contact 30 prospects and see how it goes.”

They get to 13 or so, and without seeing any replies, they abandon their efforts.

Or worse still (and unforgivable) is when they have an inbox full of positive responses but having received one negative response, they cease sending further messages. Don’t get upset at words on the internet.

As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Nobody can make you feel inferior without you consent.”

Newsflash: You are not going to run out of prospects to contact. Unless you’re selling something incredibly niche, you’re going to have a never-ending supply of prospects from across the globe.

The second mistake I see is perfectionism. I’m not suggesting you don’t review your work and ensure quality. You absolutely should.

However, delaying a campaign or project because you’re not happy with the particular shades of beige you’ve used is not acceptable. (This does remind me of the client that requested I move a logo by ‘half a pixel’. I didn’t move it but told him I did. He was happy with the results.)

My funnels, emails, and posts are littered with mistakes, broken links and all sorts of errors.

You must take imperfect action every day.

Be comfortable with a degree of unfinished business.

There’s always the edit button later.

Your perfectionist mind isn’t all it thinks it is.

Even if you fix all the mistakes (imaginary or otherwise), you may be making a whole lot of errors you aren’t aware of. Don’t be sloppy but don’t be the reverse of it. (Yppols?)

You have to be ambitious and willing to put forward efforts you know aren’t perfect.

When looking through all the old Symantec brainstorms, pitch decks, and proposals, I was shocked to see how many completely insane ideas were in there.

The slide decks were nothing pretty either.

And we were a small agency.

Hardly the ‘safe’ pick that big corporates often prefer.

Yet we still won the deal…

There’s a lot of stuff that went into that.

A lot of thinking.

A lot of effort.

A lot of tactical choices.

I’m putting together a detailed training video on how we won Symantec as a client.

You can learn more about it here. (You’ll have to scroll down a bit.)

Be quick though… Enrolment to Charm Offensive Professional ends tomorrow at midnight.

Cheers,

Jon