212: How to Fail Well
Brought to you by Courtney Cecal from Palmetto Scoopers
Summary
Have you ever failed at something? More importantly, did you grow and learn from your last failure?
Instead of viewing ourselves as a failure when a plan doesn’t go the way we thought, we need to look for the growth opportunities. On this episode, we break down the common problems entrepreneurs face when failure occurs, and how to face those failures to catapult ourselves into success.
From defining what a failure is, to setting appropriate goals, there are processes to make “failing” as beneficial as possible. Then, pet business coach Natasha O’Banion answers, “How do I have more fun in my business?”
Topics on this episode:
Defining failure
Success in failure
Deconstructing what happened
Ask a Pet Biz Coach
Main takeaway: Sit with the failure so you can see the success hiding in plain sight.
Links:
Courtney Cecal from Palmetto Scoopers
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
failure, goal, business, fail, success, defining, started, client, learn, people, facebook ad, set, write, grow, scoopers, vision, opportunities, lack, yearly goals, day
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin, Natasha
Meghan 00:17
Hi, I'm Meghan.
Collin 00:18
I'm Collin and this is petsitter. confessional
Meghan 00:21
an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Hello, welcome to Episode 212. Hello, thank you to our sponsor, Palmetto scoopers, and our wonderful Patreon members, supporters like Laura and Becky have found value in the podcast and want to support us for the price of a cup of coffee every month. So we thank you very much. And thank you to all of our Patreon members.
Collin 00:49
Today, we're talking all about failure in business. And I think we have to start by asking ourselves What even is a failure, quote, unquote, failure? defining failure is critical to both our mental and emotional health. Now, some of our tasks, whether our day to day or yearly goals for our business are probably going to fail. That's just how these things go.
Meghan 01:13
Well, yeah, as an entrepreneur, not everything that we do is going to be successful. Sometimes we're not, you know, Thomas Edison had that thing where he developed 99 999 different ways to not make a light bulb, and then the finally the one he did,
Collin 01:29
but well, whether it's a coupon that nobody's buying, or a hiring ad that nobody's responding to, or even a pet that you're trying to win over, that just never really happens, these kind of incidents are going to occur, whether we plan for them or not. Now, the textbook definition of a failure is the lack of success, which I don't think is very helpful at all.
Meghan 01:52
But that just means you have to define success. And then whatever is the opposite of that. That is what a failure is.
Collin 01:58
So we have to define failure. Because how we do that impacts our ability to learn and grow from from it, when we start thinking that failing at something is actually what defines us that it becomes part of our identity and is who we are, we stop being able to grow and learn because we start having a fixed mindset of this is just who I am, I fail at these kinds of things, I failed at this one time, I'll never be good at it. That is what a fixed mindset really starts limiting us to be able to grow and to be able to start seeing new opportunities.
Meghan 02:29
Well, and we actually had a whole episode on defining success. So this is kind of going to be the opposite of that. But my point is, is that when we talked about defining success, and that it wasn't something that defined us, so if our business was extremely successful, that would, that's awesome. But that's not our identity. That's not what we are, we are not our business, we are outside of our business. And so when we think about successes and failures, we have to think of them the same way. And so just as we are not defined by our successes, we are also not defined by our failures.
Collin 03:08
I think a lot of people will look at what a failure means is, it's when we set a goal, but we don't achieve it. And again, here the problem is really, really our focus what we are trying to do, you know, what if the goal that we set for ourselves was never achievable in the first place, I think something even more common than that is that we set the wrong goal, because we just didn't know enough.
Meghan 03:34
And there's nothing inherently wrong about setting a wrong goal or an incorrect goal. Because a lot of times we don't know what we don't know. But it's time and time again, our failure is actually just us setting the wrong goal for ourselves or not fully understanding what we wanted, or what we wanted that goal to be all along.
Collin 03:54
I like to think back to our days in school, we are probably all familiar with an assignment that would be something along the lines of write a research paper. So what's the goal for this? Is it to turn it in on time? Is it to write 10 pages? Is it to learn something? Or is it to get better at writing? Now, when I was in school, long, long, don't say that. The goal was primarily to always get it turned in by the deadline, the goal was to get turned in on time. Now if I didn't do that, did I fail? Now what if I still learn something? What if I actually enhanced my skills? Is that still a failure? This is where defining our goals and objectives for ourselves becomes so critical. And in this example, we have two things that are going in conflict with one another. We have the goal that's set by the outside world, the goal that somebody is trying to impose on us. And then many times we forget that we have our own agency to set our own internal goal for something and when we have our own internal goals, for projects for things and initiatives that we are trying to do That's where the real power and strength comes from. Because then that way, we are not being defined by somebody else's expectations. Because we've already set the match, we've already set the bar that we've already set that goal for our lives. And that way we can achieve that. And even if we don't achieve that, there's still things that we can learn from that, other than we didn't meet somebody else's expectations.
Meghan 05:22
And so the same thing, your school example, the same thing kind of applies to business as well. So you say, I want to grow my client base by 10%, over the next four months? Well, did you really fail if you only got 9%? But what if you got connected with a lot of really cool people along the way, is that still a failure, even though you missed it by 1%. So the problem is, is that many times we aren't open to these other options, because we're just not looking for them. So if I'm so focused on the 10%, I might miss the connection with another petsitter, or a client who has a lot to share. I may not even be looking whether my email marketing is actually effective, or the pain points of onboarding or, you know, pay attention, being paying attention to the feedback, because I'm so focused on that 10% on the goal. But being mission focused doesn't mean we are mission centric, or mission exclusive.
Collin 06:21
It means that that is where we are directing the majority of our time and attention and energy, but we are not walling ourselves off from being open to other opportunities. Because when we do that, we will feel like a failure when we don't reach that 10% because we won't have been able to step back and look at the broader picture of everything else that was going on. And all the other little successes that happened along the way.
Meghan 06:44
Yeah, so it's basically, even though you may not have met your goal or what you wanted to achieve, it's still thinking about the lessons that you learned along the way, still trying to find the successes, even though it looks like a failure. And so it's looking for those successes within the failure. Well, as
Collin 07:04
you mentioned earlier, Megan, the actual problem with defining failure is that most of us are terrible at defining success, we actually have no idea what it would look like for us or what we even want. So what if our definition were for success? My definition of success is the state of living and working according to my values, and failure is a state of living and working in a way that isn't aligned with our values. How would that change our business? Well, for starters, it would take our mind off of the individual tasks and more on the long term trajectory of our life and business, we'd be able to look back and see patterns of behavior, patterns of success that meet and align with our values and our why it would also keep us focused on what is actually mattering in our business is our values, our Y will stay grounded and centered on what will actually keep us going and pushing us through tough times. Plus, it's easier to work in our values, it's more enjoyable and more sustainable for us and those around us.
Meghan 08:08
Speaking of looking for opportunities. 2020 showed us the importance of having a diversified business. As we take on new clients, there are many opportunities to add services and value packages to our clients. Courtney, owner of Palmetto scoopers wants to help you be number one with your clients. Number two, Courtney is passionate about helping others Excel with a poop scooping service. What tools and training do you need? What do you do with all the poop? There's a link in our show notes for you to check out to learn and get started in pet waste removal. And let Courtney get you started on the right foot. Let's go back to our grow by 10%. Example. What if you only grew by 7%? Because you turned away clients that didn't align with your values and caring for pets. They wanted to use a different kind of color you are not okay with or only have you come by one time a day or whatever the scenario is. But you quote failed to grow but stayed true to your values. Isn't that really a success? Yes, it is. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And plus these kind of interactions are gonna have a lasting impact on you. There's something that will change your emotions and your feelings and really solidify your stance and your boundaries. It's also important to reframe our lack of success or our failure to meet our goals into something that actually is beneficial and helpful, something that we can learn from lessons that we can take away and truly understanding where it went wrong.
Collin 09:31
I think there are about four areas where we need to focus after we've suffered a failure after we've suffered a lack of success when we go back and we're doing a review of what that is and, and I do think doing a review is extremely important. Without doing a review where we sit down and we either write out, we talk out we look at the systems we look at things that are going on. If we never review the failure will never grow. And I know that it's extremely painful sometimes to have put so much effort into a project Or into an initiative, import your whole soul and body into it and not have it turn out the way you want it to. That's very painful. So obviously giving yourself some time where you can come back to it with a level head where you can assess it. But look at these four areas to try and understand where you could improve later, starting with the first one, which is did it go wrong? Did it not go the way you want it to because you had a lack of knowledge. So something like maybe you didn't understand that the different types of harnesses and showed up to a client's house where you didn't know how to put it on. But to research on the different types of harnesses and require training, and maybe even standardization of harnesses and leashes moving forward. It's all about assessing, did I have the proper knowledge base to even tackle this to even go into this? And how can I correct that moving forward? What kind of resources do I need to bring into my life? And do I need to look into the
Meghan 10:54
next one is a lack of structure or systems? So the scenario could be Did you not communicate your policies well enough, so the client was confused and had different expectations? Did they not realize that you were only going to be at the house it from 7pm to 7am, and they thought it was going to be 24 hours because you guys didn't have a conversation about it or it wasn't in your policies will create a system to help that not happen again,
Collin 11:17
then you have was there a lack of vision, maybe you struggled with where you wanted your business to go, and you found yourself not recognizing your business, or how to put boundaries in place, when we fail to be able to look forward 510 20 years down the road and do some vision casting, writing out where we want to go setting those long term goals, we can have a hard time working through the weeds and getting down in the mundane activities of our day, we can feel very lost and not really understand what the whole purpose is. So being able to step back, have a 30,000 35,000 foot view of your business. And actually what you want out of it will really help you when it comes time to making decisions and setting plans.
Meghan 12:01
Well, I heard something recently that for the yearly goals, obviously you want to set you know 510 year goals and then break it down to a year, then break it down to a month, then to a week and then to a day. And that's not saying that you're going to accomplish your goal every single day, or your big goal every single day. That's just telling you the tasks that you need to work on that day in order for you to reach your big goal.
Collin 12:26
Well, it helps you realize that there is progression that things are happening. Again, thinking back to redefining success and failure into their connection with our values, we can see that there is this long term trajectory of change of difference over time. And when you break down these big goals, these long term visions into daily tasks, you're able to look back at your notebook or at your app on your phone to track all this stuff and go, you know what I did actually check off everything, or I have checked off a vast majority of these things over time, I am making progress because it can be very defeating at times to feel like we're lost like we aren't making any progress. So that's one reason why it's really good to have these kinds of things written down is not just so that we don't forget them. But so that we can go back and remind ourselves of not just how much we've learned or how much we've grown, but how much hard work we've actually done. And all of the progress that has happened since we started or since we started trying to accomplish these goals.
Meghan 13:24
And then the final one is lack of strategy. Maybe you struggle with finances, you would not be alone in that area. But maybe we struggle with where to put your money or invest it. Well get connected with a local CPA or find a financial adviser in your area.
Collin 13:39
strategizing is merely trying to put in a game plan to meet these goals meet these objectives meet these tasks. Once we've cast the vision, once we've set forth the path we want to walk, then it gets down into how am I actually going to accomplish that. That's where the strategy comes in. Maybe you want to save $10,000 Great, that's a wonderful vision, that's a wonderful goal to have, how are you actually going to accomplish that. So getting connected with somebody you know, this is actually pulling in multiple of these, maybe you don't know what that process looks like. So you're actually reaching out to learn more, because you have a lack of knowledge. And you have a lack of strategy. You can combine these by bringing in somebody with experience somebody with expertise in this and hiring them to help you in this to help you build up your strategy and then help you implement it to
Meghan 14:23
and put structure and systems in place so that you can save a little bit every month.
Collin 14:27
Well, that's a really good point to point out that many times in our lives, we have all four of these going against us. When we go into something we don't know what we don't know. So we don't know to plan we don't know to cast the vision. And we don't have a strategy to go along with it because we don't have the structures or the vision to go along. So all these can happen individually. But I think more often than not, when something doesn't go the way we want when we sit down to deconstruct that event, what you'll find is that you'll have multiple things in each of these buckets that contributed to that. Now the important part here is not just that we have deconstructed, and we've understood where we went wrong, but that we end up recovering from it.
Meghan 15:06
Yeah, because nobody likes to fail, do you like to fail, I mean, I don't. So get good counsel around you get friends, get family get other pet sitters who have maybe gone through the exact same thing or reach out to us, we'd be happy to help you through whatever you are struggling with right now. And then sit with it just for a little bit. It doesn't have to be forever, you don't have to salt for days and days about whatever failure you've had, but do recognize those feelings. And hopefully that will help you motivate, help motivate you in the future to know I don't want to have these feelings again. So I'm going to put these things in place these processes these policies in place where that's not going to happen again, and then write it out, write out your plan, sticky note, journal, app on your phone, whatever helps you write out your things. So you don't forget them. So they can be a constant reminder of I, I'm not going to let this happen again, use the failures to catapult you into success in the future.
Collin 16:06
Absolutely. If there is a way to systematize something in your business so that that failure doesn't happen again, write it down and share it with either staff or with yourself so that you never have to a think about it again or be be caught off guard when something happens, the more we can write these processes down, the better off that we will be in the future because we know how to handle it because we wrote it down for our future self.
Meghan 16:30
Well, and especially for staff too, if you have employees, I sees more than one, they are going to maybe make the same mistake that you did, or multiple of your employees are going to make the same mistake. So it is important to let everybody know at your weekly meetings or whatever, that the this is the way we do things now. Have we ever failed at anything?
16:53
Yeah,
Collin 16:54
I mean, lots of things.
Meghan 16:57
We've also had success, so it balances out. But yeah, there was one time when we tried a Facebook ad for a dog walk or a coupon for a free dog walk. And that did not go well.
Collin 17:09
Yeah, our goal here was to grow our drop in and dog walks in our area. And we thought in order to accomplish that we could pay for Facebook ad and offer a discount coupon a free coupon for people who signed up through that.
Meghan 17:22
Yeah, we see sitters all the time doing Facebook ads, and with great success. And we had never tried one before. So we thought hey, why not?
Collin 17:29
Well, we ran it and spent, I think total of over $100 or something on it. And literally nothing came from it. Nobody signed up, nobody even clicked on it.
Meghan 17:40
I think there were like three people.
Collin 17:42
Okay, well, nobody signed up for the coupon in the end. And so you know that that was a failure in our original goal to boost drop it in dog walks through a coupon through a coupon advertised on Facebook. Now what did we learn from this, what actually evolved from this was that we still have a lot of education to do in our community about the benefits of what a drop in and dogwalk can actually do for them to try and start changing some of this client behavior and expectations when it comes to caring for their dog. This was one of the very first clues that that was not very widely accepted, and that we had kind of grown on the people who readily accepted it. But we still then had to turn around and do an A lot of education. So the Facebook ad was a failure. But the success came from us learning more about our market and learning more about the client. So we actually want
Meghan 18:33
Yeah, so just because you failed at something doesn't mean that you didn't give it your all that you didn't give it your best that you weren't 110% committed to it. But you should be proud of that you did give it your best.
Collin 18:45
So how do we fail? Well, at the end of the day, it's about recognizing that every opportunity that we have that comes along our way is a growth opportunity, we can
Meghan 18:56
turn it around and make something bad into something good
Collin 18:59
that we can learn from it, apply new things to our business, write down those procedures, learn something new, get connected with a better mentor or a group of pet sitters and people and business people in your area at each stage, even though it doesn't turn out how we want it or how we expected when we do that deconstruction of the event and we do that deconstruction of that failure. There is learning opportunities there. And that is where the success comes from. Even when we fail. we succeed when we learn from it, and that is the biggest and best way to fail well, and don't beat yourself up for trying something especially if it's something new. I mean, statistically, the more you try new things, the more likely we are going to fail. And that's okay because it means you're trying. And if we look at it, really the greatest failure of all is never having tried in the first place.
Meghan 19:54
Natasha opionion is a pet business coach and today she's going to answer the question I don't find My business fun anymore help?
Natasha 20:02
Yeah. When you when you don't find your business fun anymore, it means that you've lost a little bit of the drive. That's where that comes from that the drive is chiseling away. What does that because you're burnt out or you just have too many hands in the pot. That's typically where it comes from, you're burnt out, you're losing a little bit of drive, and therefore you're like, you know what, this is not even fun anymore. It's not It's not the excitement that I had in the beginning. The first thing that I would say is that when you lose the drive in your business, now we want to decide if this is burnout or drive. Okay, there's two different things. If you lose the drive in your business, you need to hire help. You need to say, you know what, I'm done. I'm dead for one point. Well, for one point for me when I was burnt out, and I was handling emails, just before we automated everything, I was doing the mom and pop stuff. I've been there, I was doing the emails, and my emails started to get a little snappy and a little snarky, like him started to get irritated, like less than Come on, you know, it wasn't those words, but it kind of felt that tone, you know, when a little bit of my responses, and I started to see that myself, and I hired someone I say, Listen, I can't be doing emails anymore, I'll figure out and curse someone on email, potentially, I don't know, you know, what I just did not that far. But you know, on your body, when you're kind of getting irritated, you know, you've got to remove yourself, you got to put somebody else in that spot. Say, listen, I can't do emails anymore. You got to do emails, you got to you got to respond to people, or you got to just send the same messages. Because one thing that happens is we're taking care of a cat, we're taking care of a dog, and then people are calling and they're texting you, they're not going to get the best response from you. They're going to get a quick, fast, irrational response. And you want to remove yourself. And that's when you started to notice you're losing the drive. So get someone else CEOs do it all the time. You're the founder, but the founder, get somebody else to either General Manager to run this thing or another owner or another partner, but they get someone in that spot when they've lost drive. Now if you're just burned out, same answer, you got to get some help, because you're realizing that you're scaling to a capacity that you can't keep up with. And that's why it's not becoming fun anymore. No one said you couldn't still make a good income and be passive and still have the vision and the dream that you have. That's what I do. I haven't walked a dog in years years, I started to have a bunch of children. But I still love my business. I got different people running it for me, and I'm not going to sell it or I'm not going to do anything about it because why I have other people where I am not
Meghan 22:40
Natasha has a very successful pet business and she is also a pet business coach. If you would like her to be your personal pet business coach and walk you through the ins and outs of your business. You can go to her website start scale sale calm and use the code p sc 20. For 15% off. Thank you to our sponsor, Palmetto scoopers and thank you to our awesome Patreon members. Thank you for listening. We really appreciate it and we hope that you are doing well and your business is thriving. And we would love any feedback or topic ideas or interview guests that you guys have. We are always looking for ways to help improve the show. So if you have any ideas, please let us know at feedback at petsitter confessional comm or you can let us know on Facebook and Instagram at petsitter. confessional
Collin 23:28
and let us know a failure that set you in a different course on your business and that you learn from and that you have applied new things to both your life and your business that's actually set yourself up better than you ever expected. Thank you again so much for listening. Hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. We'll be back
23:45
next time.
