For instance when you get into a car accident, the first thing your insurance or a lawyer will tell you is don’t apologize because apologizing means accepting blame. In big company scandals, everyone passes the buck. It’s always someone else’s fault, never our own. I know, no one likes to make mistakes, especially if the mistake has been made at work and your organization is on the hook for it. But you know what’s worse than the actual error? Not acknowledging it or attempting to make amends.
Sure, sometimes there are issues beyond our control and sometimes our hands are tied when it comes to certain decisions. But I’m talking about admitting to a moment when you know you’ve dropped the ball. Here’s the twist. I am positing that admission of a mistake doesn’t make you or your organization look bad. On the contrary, it makes you look responsible for your actions and humanizes you, and at the end of the day, honesty and the willingness to rectify the situation is all a client could ask for.
Rebranding the Mistake
“Hey world – we make mistakes, but you know what? We make incredibly powerful work that has a real effect. How? Because we’re unafraid to be wrong.” What a brazen way of approaching our work with clients. Could it be possible to find better aligned clients this way? An important part of this rebranding is having the support of everyone at your organization. It requires giving the entire team permission to fully utilize their unique gifts to create a unique approach to each and every client endeavor. It means allowing the team to be human and not expecting them to churn out work as if they were machines. When your team feels fired up, inspired, and seen, the quality of work skyrockets.
Mistakes are learning moments
Hear me out. Remember when you were young and learning all sorts of new skills, how did you learn best? Typically, from making mistakes right? Mistakes usually mean that you’re in uncharted territory which for marketing is a very exciting place to be in. When we say mistake, we mean allowing yourself the time and space to play and explore new ideas. Sure, you don’t want to be making weekly mistakes that cost your client money or time. But at the end of the day, we’re all humans running around trying to not mess up. Imagine all that we could accomplish if we weren’t afraid of “getting it wrong.” What if that boundary was removed? Instead of trying to not get it wrong, we could push boundaries and think outside of the box.
Mistakes are magic
When you’ve been working hard on a project and suddenly, oops! Something has gone off track, that’s the wrong color or font or photo. With the right mindset and creative lens, what if that error is a window into what could be? Yes, a plan is always nice to keep us on course and ensures we meet deadlines. What if happy accidents encouraged us to look at the project from a new angle? What if you allowed your intuition to guide you to find a completely new way of doing something? I don’t know about you, but when we present our clients with something they never thought of, it’s always a win-win. In order to get to the win, we can’t be afraid of making a wrong turn every now and then.
I don’t know about you, but we didn’t get into marketing to be just average. Our team wants to help our clients find the most creative ways to reach their audiences. We are not a large company cranking out thousands of websites or sterile social posts like machines. We are not cookie cutter. We’re human. And mistakes are part of that. We encourage you to be strong and wrong because a strong choice will always be better than floating in a sea of mediocrity.
So. Where do you stand on making mistakes?
