Seth Godin insightfully said “If failure's not an option, then neither is success…"
He's right of course, because playing it too safe too often merely perpetuates the status quo... and long-term success occurs beyond the status quo.
So without risking failure, without challenging the status quo, without looking beyond business-as-usual true, enduring, success is only illusory.
The status quo feels safe to us because it's what we know (and what everyone else is doing)... but the truth is that the status quo is actually failing slowly and blind adherence to it only means that you are actually failing slowly too.
Look at direct response marketing, for example, we are now at a point where a one quarter of one percent response rate is typical and a one percent response rate is considered exceptional. And yet many of you are still looking for that "killer headline", "irresistible offer", "more creative copy", "compelling testimonial", "emotional connection" or some combination of the above that will somehow make your direct response mail piece work for you... it won't.
Sure you can "tweak" your direct response mail piece all you want but if the best you are going to do is a one percent response rate (a number that is declining all the time) you are condemning your business to fail slowly if you rely on direct response marketing for your member acquisition demands.
The fact is that most businesses don't actually collapse suddenly... they fail slowly.
And the problem with failing slowly is that you rarely see it coming (even though it is coming for a long time) and you rarely understand why it happened (because you were doing what you had always done when you were "successful").
Henry Ford famously said that, "Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” Unfortunately, when you fail slowly you rarely have the insight required to begin again more intelligently.
Failing slowly only seems like the safer option right now because it is largely indistinguishable from success... at least until it is too late.
If failure is inevitable (and it is) it is much better for long-term success to fail fast, fail cheap, fail small, fail often, but fail intelligently.
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