Morning all,
I’m back again with another blog for the morning – and this time I’m back again to talk about ‘relentless failure’.
It’s extremely challenging times for my whole agency because seemingly I’m always finding issues with our work – things we could be doing better and suggestions for how we can do more…..
And it’s frustrating when you feel the team are always coming up short.
It’s a weird feeling when you both respect and value your team – and yet at the same time…you find some of the things really annoying LOL.
Consequently, it means challenges come up.
I think it’s borne from a whole series of challenges which I’m going to do my best to map out here:
I wake up at 430am every day and dedicate myself to learning and development. As Ion (my head of new business) tells me – it’s unrealistic to expect anyone to keep up at the same rate.
The ‘More Hours Per Day’ Philosophy
This isn’t the ‘I think I’m awesome’ outlook – it’s the statistical outlook that I dedicate more hours per day on average to ‘working’ – which means I’m likely to have more insights than anyone else.
The ‘More Care’ Philosophy
As my fiancé tells me – I care about Pearl Lemon more than anyone else – again this is just a fact that’s the same for 99.9% of all business owners. So with this in mind – it’s much more likely again that I’ll ‘think of more things to improve the business’ than any of my colleagues will.
The ‘Most Experience’ Philosophy
The average age and experience level of my team is tiny. I’m almost the oldest at 35 and the MOST experienced person I have has been in the job for 4 years (Semil and his team – the SEO side). And prior to this role – Semil and his team were working in other agencies for 5-10 years. Then you’ve got Ion whose been our head of new business for 2 years now and he’s been in sales for 15+ years. Outside of this we then have Lydia whose been in the role for 2.5 years and had ZERO experience before this.
So then the rest of the 50-odd strong team are all learning/have less experience than this (in the main) so that would explain why there are challenges.
The ‘Inexperience’ Philosophy
Pearl Lemon win jobs ahead of our competition in niches that we’re still learning ourselves. With this in mind then it’s not surprising that there are challenges that come with this kind of territory.
We’re heading into the property, accounting, pr niches as well as being firmly entrenched in the lead generation niche whilst we try and ‘figure things out’.
‘If you’re going through hell…keep going’
To steal the Winston Churchill quote – this is really important to keep in mind also – that sometimes you just need to get through the pain that comes with ‘relentless failure’. Because with each client or situation that you get involved in with this in mind – well you LEARN from it and keep getting better.
One of the upsides of pressure from clients and in general all around is that it forces you to buck up your ideas and get better at what you do.
Over the last 3-4 months it’s been a turbulent time trying to figure things out and learn from every scenario – but then the amount we’ve learnt at something that’s really really hard (i.e b2b lead generation) is massive.
And there’s deep value in that.
[convertful id=”197358″]
So with this in mind here are some things you MUST do – to get through relentless failure –
Ask yourself –
Is the end goal worth the journey?
In the instance of Pearl Lemon, I truly believe it is. I’ve for example already identified in Vasco identified something incredibly important – I can build a business development function that can bring in new business potentially.
Vasco is yet to close anything from outbound prospecting but he gets better and better every day and I believe it’s only a matter of time.
Furthermore, with the addition of Gary, Louis, David and Alex – I’ve also got 4 people I’d ideally like to keep on who can help grow out the business as well – and all at a salary level that I believe makes sense for the business.
Is there progress?
Yes, there definitely is – in bullet points:
- We have a new PR only website
- We have an office in Uganda
- Pearl Kasirye has gone full time and is building out a PR team
- We’ve got Pearl Lemon Web and Accountants live to build in the background
- We’ve got 4 British salespeople for the first time – all I need is ONE person to do well to validate that this could transform the entire business (if they can cold call and book appointments for clients OR for Pearl Lemon)
- I’ve hired my nephew and niece and they’re really putting the work in and I intend on keeping them long term as they are getting better daily
- Our lead generation team has made significant progress in terms of their general level of ability
- I have in Chill, Anusharee, Carlos and Macky hopefully identified a long-term team
- I’ve uncovered a boatload of pages we can build for SEO that will help us win more business across every website
Final Thoughts?
I guess in all of this – what I’m REALLY saying is – is identify whether you are making progress or not… and then accordingly you can decide whether well….the pressure is worth it.
I hope this helps!
