What Winners Do

What Winners Do
Author: Charlie Cook
July 14th, 2009


Even the smartest people I know make mistakes, really big ones. In fact they make more than most. But they are still very successful in business — and in life.
What is it that winners do that separates them from people who are always struggling?
One of the smartest people that I know is a doctor who retired just last month. He and his wife, both very experienced sailors, had made plans to spend several weeks cruising the coast of Maine. In preparation, the doctor did a lot of work this spring on their 36-foot sailboat, including taking off and refurbishing the propeller and then putting it back on.

When they launched the boat and started to back it off the trailer, though, the doctor discovered he’d made a major mistake. When he shifted the motor into reverse, the engine pushed the boat forward and when he shifted it into forward, the boat went backwards.

He quickly arranged to have the sailboat hauled to the local boat yard and made a point of being there when the repair was made. He wanted the mechanic to show him exactly what he’d done wrong when he reinstalled the propeller.
He wanted to learn how to avoid making the same mistake the next time around, get the boat moving forward when he shifted it into forward gear, and get the cruise underway.

And that’s what winners do.

They don’t hide or ignore mistakes or missteps. They acknowledge them, even celebrate what they learned from the situation, and move on.
Anyone can use this simple, no-cost marketing tip to continually get smarter and make more money.

Over the last few decades I’ve seen hundreds of people double or triple their profits within months, and I’ve seen a handful never get where they want to go.
You’ve seen the same thing. Two smart people from the same school end up in two very different places. One as the CEO pulling in a huge salary with generous stock options, the other struggling to make ends meet.

What’s the single most important difference between winners and losers? It’s not just that they make more mistakes.

Winners are quicker to learn and adjust their course to reach their goals! The difference is…

The Speed of Course Correction.

Imagine you are in a canoe race where the objective is to paddle across a lake to the finish line on the far side. You and your fellow competitors all have the same strength, paddling experience and start at the same time.

You’re headed for the finish line and paddling hard when a breeze picks up and begins to push all the canoes sideways. Can you predict who will win the race?
The winners will be the team that notices the change in the conditions and adjusts their course the quickest. They’ll win by being the fastest to make the adjustments that will give the shortest possible route to their destination.

Everyone wants a straight path to success, but obstacles get in the way; competitors, recessions, marketing that doesn’t get a response, the shifting interests of your clients; the list is endless if you see it that way.
The business people who end up on top are quick to acknowledge that things are off course. They continually make the changes necessary to reach their goals.
What’s the fastest way for you to stay in the winners’ lane?

1. Learn to Love Mistakes

When I had my first website in the mid ‘90s it cost me $35,000 and it was more or less a flop. It barely made any money.
I could have thrown up my hands and decided that the Internet was a total waste of time. Instead I chose to get the most I could out of my $35,000 blooper.
I took it as a challenge to discover which mistakes I’d made and what to do differently the next time around. I sold my second website a year later for just under a million dollars.

I made a big mistake, learned all I could from it, and turned that knowledge into a big success. You can do the same.

2. Acknowledge Mistakes Right Away

I talked to a business owner, a specialty clothing retailer, who told me he’d spent $7,000 on Yellow Page ads. When I asked him how many customers the ads had generated, he said none. The following month he signed up with the Yellow Pages again. What’s wrong with this picture?

If you’re not getting the results you want from your marketing, admit that your current strategy needs to be adjusted, if not totally replaced. Let go of the strategies and tactics that aren’t working and make room for new, more effective ones.

My doctor friend who put his propeller on backwards could have just kept the problem a secret and lived with it for the summer, remembering to put the boat in reverse when he wanted to go forward.

Or he could have tried to fix the propeller himself, hoping he could figure it out on his own the second time around. Instead, he admitted his mistake, sought expert advice, learned from his mistake and set off for a great vacation.

3. Be Ready to Change Course

Over and over I hear the same things from small business owners struggling with their marketing. They tell me:

“I’m sure that idea won’t work for me.”
“I know that already.”
“I can’t find anyone to help me.”
“I just want someone to hand me a blueprint.”
These are excuses to keep doing the same thing, even if it isn’t working.
Winners recognize mistakes and grab at new marketing ideas. They put them to the test, track the results and continually fine-tune the ways they market and manage their businesses.

I have many clients who’ve done just that, and more than one who doubled their income last year in the midst of a lousy economy. They jumped on the ideas I gave them and put them into practice.

You can be a winner, too. Your business goals are within reach. To achieve them, be willing to make mistakes; admit them; learn from them and take corrective action, quickly.

“If you don’t make mistakes, if you don’t have failures you’ll never learn…too often I find people, they make a mistake, they don’t take the lessons from that and they make it again and again. So spend the time to figure out what you can learn from it so you don’t ever repeat it.” Indra Nooyi, Pepsico, CEO