Never Give Up! How to Succeed in Business When Everyone Else is Failing

We all want to succeed, don’t we? Succeed in business and to succeed in our private lives as well.

I was recently reminded of a famous and inspiring quote from Winston Churchill’s address to Harrow School in the UK back in 1941. It was certainly one of his shortest speeches, but probably also one of his most quoted. He said:

“Never give in, never, never, never, never”

You can read his full speech – which is not much longer! – here.

Hearing this quote got me thinking about failure. Failure in our lives, our businesses, our jobs, our relationships. And more importantly, about how we often fail merely because we give up too quickly. Unfortunately, we’ll never know, but we can do something to avoid failure. We can do a lot!

Now whereas I believe that advising you on your private life is best left to my other platform https://finding-your-happy.com, I do feel sufficiently knowledgeable to speak about your business failures here.

I recently wrote about the 7 reasons most companies fail to adopt a customer-first strategy. They were the conclusion to a post on what a customer-first strategy is, and what it isn’t. If you missed it, then click the link above to read the full article.

If you want to learn more about how to adopt a customer-first strategy, then I’m sure you’ll be interested in checking out my new course called “A Customer-First Strategy for Accelerating Brand Growth.” It is a success roadmap for putting your customers at the heart of your business for faster growth & profitability.

Over the many years of blog posting, I’ve written many posts on numerous topics, including my solutions to failing in countless areas of marketing. I therefore thought it would be useful to share four summaries of the most important articles related to failure in business and innovation in a single post. Let me know what you think.

 

 

How you React to Failure Could Help You Succeed in Business

For this first summary of a post, I’d like to share not a list of solutions but a selection of inspiring quotes on reacting to failure. I think it sets the stage beautifully for the three other summaries to come.

In the full post (which you can read by clicking the above link) you can also find suggested actions for each of them. They will make you realise that there is great opportunity in every failure! So don’t be afraid to fail. Just don’t miss the chance to learn a valuable lesson!

1. “It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure” Bill Gates, American Businessman

2. “Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be” John Wooden, American Coach

3. “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail” Benjamin Franklin, American Politician

4. “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently” Henry Ford, American Businessman

5. “The difference between average people and achieving Click to continue reading

Five Brilliant Ideas to Boost your Insight Development

Insights are the pot of gold that many businesses dream of but rarely find. Why is that? Are you one of them? If so then I have some practical ideas on how you can get much, much better at insight development.

 

#1. Insights rarely come from a single market research study

Management often thinks that insight is “just another word for market research”. I remember one of my previous CEOs saying exactly that to me just before he addressed the whole market research and insight global team at our annual conference. I’m sure you can imagine what a panic I was in as he walked up to the mike!
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Insights are demanding to develop and are rarely, if ever, developed from a single piece of market research. Each market research project is designed to gather information in order to answer one or more questions. Whilst it may enable a business to make a more informed decision based upon the objectives, insight development is quite a different process.

Insight development involves integrating, analysing and synthesising all the data and information you have about a category or segment user. Then summarising it into knowledge and turning that knowledge into understanding. Only then are you ready to develop an insight.

All brands should have (at least) one insight on which its image, personality and Big Idea (for communications) are built. For example

  • AXE (Lynx in UK): (young) men want to attract as many beautiful and sexy women as possible. This is one of their newer ads, where the seduction is a little less in your face and more subtle – but still there.

 

  • Haribo Starmix: There’s a child inside every adult. This “Kid’s Voices” campaign has been running for years and manages to surprise and delight with each new episode. Which is your favourite? Please add a comment below.

 

  • Dulux sample paint pots: I love to decorate my home, but I don’t want to look stupid by choosing the wrong colour. Although these are now a standard offer for many paint brands, Dulux were the first to understand the problem facing potential home decorators.

Dulux sample pot example of insight development

Insight development will provide the basis on which you will define the actions that are needed to change the attitudes and / or behaviour of your target audience. It also provides a solid framework on which to build your Big Idea for your communications’ strategy.

 

So there you have them, the five ideas and numerous examples that will help you to develop better insights more easily.

Although you probably already have your own process for creating them, I know from experience how hard it can be to find insights from all the information you gather.

I hope this short article has assisted you in your search for those “golden nuggets”. Do Click to continue reading

How to Succeed in Leadership, Marketing, Innovation and Insight

Although I love quotes, especially about how to succeed, I love success even more. Do you?

One of my favourite quotes on the topic of success comes from Winston Churchill during his address to the Harrow School (UK) during WWII in 1941. It was one of his shortest speeches but probably one of his most quoted. He said:

“Never give in, never, never, never, never”

If you are interested, you can read his full speech – which is not a lot longer! – here.

 

Hearing this quote again recently, got me thinking about failure. Failure in our lives, our businesses, our jobs, our relationships. And you must admit that we are just at the beginning of the impact of covid on the world and I know we need to prepare for a lot of failures in the coming months and years. But I ask myself how often we fail merely because we give up too quickly?

Another of my favourite quotes on success and failure comes from Napolean Hill:

“Most great people have achieved their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure.” 

Now whereas I do advise people today on how to find more happiness in their lives (See my new website on intuitive coaching at Finding-Your-Happy.com), I want to address here the many current and possibly future failures in business.

Another recent post of mine concentrated on why companies fail in their adoption of a customer-first strategy. You can read it here: 7 reasons most companies fail to adopt a customer first strategy. This was a follow up to another popular post on what a customer-first strategy is, and what it isn’t. If you missed it, then you can read it here: “What Customer First Strategies Really Are (And What They’re Not!)”

Over almost a decade of blog posting, I have written many other articles which include my solutions to failing in countless areas of marketing. I, therefore, thought it would be useful to share four of the most popular ones here in a single post (Links to original full-length posts in titles). Let me know what you think.

 

How you React to Failure Could Make You a Success

For this first summary of a post, I’d like to share not a list of solutions but a selection of inspiring quotes on reacting to failure. I think it sets the stage beautifully for the other articles to come.

In the full post (which you can read by clicking the above link) you can also find suggested actions for each of them. They will make you realise that there are great opportunities in every failure! So don’t be afraid to fail. Just never give up!

1. “It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure” Bill Gates, American Businessman

2. “Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be” John Wooden, American Coach

[easy-tweet tweet=”“Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be” John Wooden, … Click to continue reading

How the Best Marketers are Getting More Actionable Insights

Marketing often jumps from information to insight, to the frustration of market research. But the best marketers know that closer collaboration and sharing enables greater underst anding and deeper insights.… Click to continue reading

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