Fast Company has a great piece out called The Dirty Little Secret Of Overnight Successes. It offers a reality check for people who think there’s an easy trick to making it big:
As Chris Dixon pointed out in a recent blog post, Angry Birds, the incredibly popular game, was software maker Rovio’s 52nd attempt. They spent eight years and nearly went bankrupt before finally creating their massive hit.
James Dyson failed in 5,126 prototypes before perfecting his revolutionary vacuum cleaner. Groupon was put on life support and nearly shut down at one point in its meteoric rise.
When looking at the most successful people and organizations, we often imagine geniuses with a smooth journey straight to the promised land. But when you really examine nearly every success story, they are filled with crushing defeats, near-death experiences, and countless setbacks.
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There is no trick to success. There’s no secret sauce that will make a hamburger joint go from forgotten to famous. There’s no advertising tagline that will make customers flock to your product and forget your competitors’. There’s no secret management command that will make your workforce turn off twitter and turn on the charm. It just doesn’t work that way.
Like I’ve said over and over again, doing things well means doing them right. And doing them right takes time and effort. A lot of time. And a lot of effort.
That’s why it’s called work.
You can always get better, and there’s no shame in asking for help. If you’d like my help in auditing your marketing strategy and integrating your message across platforms, I’m happy to take a look. But don’t think that you cut me a check, I snap my fingers, and everything suddenly starts coming up roses.
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