Failure is an Option

by Ann Evanston | Aug 7, 2014 | Speaking Strategy

Failure…such an interesting word isn’t it? When growing your business, or like, my MasterMind clients who are learning how to say and write about what they do in a compelling way, odds are you might fail in the beginning. Here are a couple things I shared with my Compel. Speak. Sell MasterMind clients:

First, failure is not a bad thing! Many many highly successful people FAIL. The key is your desire to achieve plan A, and your willingness to consciously learn from your failure. We don’t need to redefine failure. (Ask Thomas Edison, Michael Jordan….) We need to own and learn from failure.

Second, it is funny to me how many times I say to a client “stop trying to memorize your presentation” and they STILL do it. Over the years, working with many people here is why I think that is true:

a) they lack confidence in their knowledge, and what it is they REALLY do that builds transformation. They may intuitively know, but not in an organized way. When this is true you struggle with the words, and feel a need to script and memorize. All head, no heart.

b) they lack personal self confidence: they are constantly comparing themselves to others and how they think they SHOULD be or act to have success. Now you memorize because you are trying to BE what you think you should be instead of coming from who you really are (wait, those are the lessons in my book huh?!)

c) they are disguising features as benefits, and when it comes to creating a compelling presentation, speaking from the heart is hard when you do that. When we speak it is the benefits, the promises, the transformation that matters. If you don’t truly know that, you will focus on why you do (features) versus how or why it is beneficial.

Are you able to fail and LEARN? Do you have the correct knowledge to improve what you failed at, or are you just shooting in the dark to improve it?