Scale Up Strategies: The Business Podcast for Coaches, Consultants, and Speakers
We're your hosts and Business Coaching experts Mary Fain Brandt and Laura Bashore
We’re sharing all our mistakes and insider tips from our 20+ years in business and
how we successfully scaled up our businesses without losing our minds or our husbands.
Sure you can piece it together and try to DIY your way to success
OR
you can listen to us every week and learn the shortcuts because we promise there
are some.
Scale Up Strategies: The Business Podcast for Coaches, Consultants, and Speakers
Embracing Failure: Transforming Setbacks into Entrepreneurial Success
Ever wondered if failure could actually be the secret ingredient to your success? Tune in to this enlightening episode of Scale Up Strategies, where we dissect the critical role of failure in entrepreneurship.
We'll share eye-opening statistics about the high failure rates of startups and draw fascinating comparisons to the educational sector. Listen to personal anecdotes and notable examples, like Reid Hoffman's initial failed venture before LinkedIn, that illustrate how setbacks can pave the path to triumph.
Learn why releasing imperfect first versions and actively seeking feedback can spell the difference between stagnation and growth.
Transitioning from a traditional career to the entrepreneurial world can be a rollercoaster of emotions, but it’s one filled with opportunities. We dive into the emotional journey of prioritizing family over a beloved career and how these challenging decisions can lead to unexpected, rewarding business ventures. Discover why startups that pivot early tend to attract more funding and grow faster.
We also tackle the societal stigma around failure, urging you to view it as a learning opportunity. Plus, get practical tips on mastering public speaking and networking to turn every event into a client acquisition opportunity. Don't miss out on strategies that will help you embrace failure, adapt, and ultimately thrive in your entrepreneurial journey.
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You're listening to Scale Up Strategies, the business growth podcast for coaches, consultants and speakers. We're your hosts and business coach experts Mary Fane Grant and Laura Bay Shor.
Laura Bashore:We're sharing all our insider tips from 20 plus years in business, including how we successfully scaled our businesses without losing our minds or our husbands.
Mary Fain Brandt:Sure, you can piece it together and try to DIY your way to success, or you can listen to us every week and learn the shortcuts, because we promise they're really awesome.
Laura Bashore:So grab your favorite cup of coffee, tune in and let's start the show.
Mary Fain Brandt:Welcome back to Scale Up Strategies, the business growth podcast for coaches, consultants and speakers. I'm Mary Fane Brandt.
Laura Bashore:And I'm Laura Vashor, and today we're diving into a topic that every entrepreneur can relate to failure and specifically why it's important to fail first and fail hard. So, according to small business trends, 90% of startups fail and 21.5% fail within their first year. Yikes.
Mary Fain Brandt:That's true. Now, did you know this has nothing to do with entrepreneurs? But did you know? In the educational sector, teachers, if they don't stay, like the three-year mark is where they leave because it's too hard. Isn't that interesting?
Laura Bashore:Like there's even that failure component over in the professional world. Yeah, I actually do know that because I worked in education as well, on the side of helping teachers who were already in when they had to get recertified as paraprofessionals, where it turned out they had to get their AAs. I was in education when we had to help them get those, so I do know that stat.
Mary Fain Brandt:Yeah, Interesting Cause I I worked in education as well and they're like we got to get them to that, you know, over that three year mark and then to five years. If a teacher's five years, they're going to stick it out, but it's that first five years. So there's failure not only as a business owner, you guys, but just as professionals, as we all know. So failure is just part of the entrepreneurial journey. If you think you're going to launch a business and it's all going to be rainbows and unicorns and you're never going to fail, then I don't think you were built for entrepreneurship. Because, as Laura and I both know, there's failure all along the path.
Mary Fain Brandt:And I'm going to share a study here by the University of Phoenix shout out to Arizona found that 53% of adults in the workforce have experienced at least one business failure. And then, of course, you guys, there's the famous quote by Thomas Edison I have not failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. We all know that I have failed professionally. I have failed as an entrepreneur. I think what's important in this episode is yes, you're going to fail, be ready to embrace failure. And I think we're going to talk about why you need to fail fast and first and then, what to do when you fail. Do you look at it and ask yourself why, how and how could I prevent that? That's what I do when I fail.
Laura Bashore:Yeah, I think a lot of times the word failure has such a negative connotation around it that we feel like we can't admit it. And to your point, that's the first part. So I agree with this section of what we wanted to talk about, which is kind of the humor in failure. You know you can't take things so seriously. Obviously you want to take your business serious, but think about it from people who you know and businesses that you respect.
Laura Bashore:So, oddly enough, I love what you found here by Reid Hoffman, who's one of the co-founders of LinkedIn, and Reid Hoffman believes his first failed social networking venture which maybe you didn't know that he had something before LinkedIn, but it was called SocialNet and it failed. But he thinks that that's exactly what led to the success of LinkedIn, because what he realized was he needed something to help it stand out, and by clearly defining the main purpose for LinkedIn as connecting professionals. That's what's turned it into the platform it is today. And I like this quote that was pulled, which is if you're not embarrassed by your version, one release, so whatever you're releasing first in your business. He says you released it too late. But what do you think about that, mary?
Mary Fain Brandt:I am so embarrassed of my first version of my business as a career coach the website, my services, the packages, like I was just trying to put it together right, I didn't. You know, our stories are different. I didn't want to be an entrepreneur, I wasn't thinking this was my path. I didn't know anything about owning a business and I thought everything had to look perfect before launching. But I failed miserably because I didn't do my research and find out what my clients were seeking and needed versus what I was offering them.
Laura Bashore:Yeah, yeah, and that's so key. You know, a lot of times when we're starting a business, we're so nervous about failure and what that looks like outwardly that we don't take the time to take a step back and think what do our clients need? Because that's what's going to make us successful. It's not about us successful, it's not about us, it's not about me.
Mary Fain Brandt:I feel that we're and this is, this is throughout our lives. We're being judged. Even before social media, we were being judged by our peers, by our family, by our friends. Now you throw social media in there. Oh my gosh, you know they're judging me, just like LinkedIn, our favorite platform. Should I post anything personal over there? It's only for professional stuff. Will I be judged? How will I be viewed? Right, we get judged over our looks, over what we say, over our websites, when we speak, and I think that one of the most important things is what can you learn when failure happens to you? And I know you have a funny failure story. Do you want to share that now? Sure.
Laura Bashore:And it's a little strange. So, okay, you guys know I've had my business for almost nine years and I've picked up two additional businesses since starting the coaching business that I have. But little known fact you may or may not know. During COVID I picked up selling Osborne books. Do you know what those are, mary?
Mary Fain Brandt:They're like the kids educational books, right.
Laura Bashore:Yeah, and, and they're based in England and, and I love those. And so during COVID, my kids were really young we're talking three and five and I thought, oh my gosh, I need to educate these kids Like I'm their teacher now. So in doing so, I knew I was going to buy Osborne books if I liked them. And then I thought, oh well, I could become a consultant and also make some money while I'm selling these. Become a consultant and also make some money while I'm selling these. So I did that.
Laura Bashore:Well, you know, I found that MLMs are not for me, not a thing that works for me. So I I I enjoyed the books, my children enjoyed the books. I did host like two Zoom things and I made some money off of it, but it was a heck of a lot of work. And also, you know, to do that kind of business, you really need to be sharing things on Facebook and I don't really like to do so much business there on my personal page. But also you have to be like fun and cheesy, and anyone who knows me knows that I am those things, but I'm not overtly and I can't do things that don't feel authentic to me. And so, yeah, what I learned is that I am very successful at many things.
Mary Fain Brandt:Mlm form platforms at many a thing. Mlm form platforms not so much. I was in a couple MLMs as well, like decades and decades ago I did Young Living, but I did that really just to get the stuff at the discount, but I never really like earned money, right I'd spent everything. I earned and I was going to do this wine.
Mary Fain Brandt:MLM and I was like, no, that's just not. You know that wine and coffee. I was like it just sucks up my time in a way that I don't want to, so failing that. So I'm going to just read this. You know, there's a funny failure I guess failure story with Airbnb. They sold cereal boxes to keep their company afloat, and the reason I want to bring that in yeah, so people do, you do what you have to do to keep your business afloat and there's no shame in that and you shouldn't.
Mary Fain Brandt:I want to say this you shouldn't feel like a failure if you have a business and you're doing side hustles and I'm sharing that because I had a part-time job at a school. I've had contract work and that contract work was using my LinkedIn skills and I did contract work for 18 months. I've worked part-time during building my business. You know filling in the gaps. You know COVID, that was fun. So I want people to know that it you're not a failure If you find other ways to generate revenue when you're going through a rough patch in your business or you're pivoting in your business, or maybe you're just starting out, cause I think that for many people, they hide the fact that they have other revenue streams, like if it doesn't tie into their business, like, oh, I'm working part time over here because I'm not making enough money yet over here.
Mary Fain Brandt:That's not a failure and that's nothing to be ashamed of. More people do that than you know, and especially in today's world, with a cost of everything. Unless you're like sitting on, you know know, unless you have a rainbow that goes right into your backyard and there's that pot of gold, most people are working a couple jobs or have you know different uh streams of revenue yeah, I I completely agree with that, and I think that leads right into the next part, which is sometimes we take on so much that we forget stripping away what doesn't work.
Mary Fain Brandt:That's not a failure.
Laura Bashore:I think that you know learning from your mistakes this is probably my favorite like aha thing to share with business owners, because it's okay to stop. So we should just say that again it's okay to stop. Good at Taking away the things that you're not good at doesn't mean you're a failure. It means that you are being strategic about the way you approach your business. So, just like with a statistic we pulled from a study done by Harvard Business Review, I found that business owners learn from their failures, or the ones who learn from their failures are more likely to succeed in the future Makes sense, absolutely. You know even some of the biggest people that you hear of. So, like Steve Jobs, I think it's pretty fair to say that most of us are familiar with the failures that he had that then eventually led into Apple or to the creation of Next and Pixar. All these things were seen as failures at the beginning until they were strategically reviewed and figured out how to streamline them or sell them off to somebody else so that they would become profitable.
Mary Fain Brandt:Yeah, absolutely. And you know, to just keep this authentic and real, because that's laura and I like to do, we we want this podcast to really speak to you and to be relatable. So, um, I learn, course creation is not my jam. I've tried it twice and I sold like two spots like I, I, you know the course creation and then selling the spot with the coaching. It just doesn't work for me but I got, I got so tunnel vision of what my colleagues were doing and course creation was all around and I just did a post about this on LinkedIn that since moving to Arizona, I don't have FOMO.
Mary Fain Brandt:I feel so crystal clear of what I'm supposed to do and I don't care what anyone else is doing. I don't. I'm not them. That's not my cup of tea. So my big failure was spending months creating a course, promoting it and getting one person to sign up one time and one person to sign up the second time. I've tried courses a few times and I've bought Amy Porterfield's course how to create a course, how to launch a course that just doesn't work for me.
Mary Fain Brandt:The other thing for me, I feel like when I started, I had 10 different service packages. More is better. Give everyone choices. Well, that's not really better. That just created more work and I just really streamlined my services. So for me, that FOMO piece thinking that if I'm not doing what my colleagues are doing, I'm a failure. So that is no longer the case and knowing that my specialty is not in creating courses, you know, because I actually don't like courses, I buy them and then I don't take them. So it makes sense. Yeah, I'm a coach and a consultant. I like to work with someone and train them and get them up and running so they can take off and fly. So that's really, you know, that's one of my biggest failures. Is that whole? I mean, I spent thousands of dollars on programs on how to launch a course.
Mary Fain Brandt:I took a copywriting course, I did an online summit, you know? Oh, that's the other thing I spent. I spent 15 grand on that copywriting course. Now, it did teach me a few things, but I did that online summit for a week every day with guests. It was all prerecorded and edited. I spent so much time and money on that and you know what Did it build a little bit of brand visibility, yeah, but I could have done that. I could have spent that $15,000 in different ways.
Laura Bashore:Yeah, yeah, you know, I think one of the things that has always stopped me with that is when I started my business my career coaching side of when I first started out when I was doing that, I immediately joined a really good industry association, so National Resume Writers Association I will just give that a shout out because that stopped me from diving down the hole and thinking about that, you know, because I had a solid group of professionals that I could collaborate with immediately. I think that's so important because you do. You have to fight against comparison all the time and thinking, well, if I'm only doing this, then maybe that's what's going to send me over, instead of focusing on what you're good at, what your what area of genius is or zone of genius, there you go. So you need to focus in on those things. And it's interesting for our listeners just hear the different amounts of failure stories we are sharing because we want to be real of them.
Laura Bashore:So for me, one of the hardest things and times where I felt like a failure the most in my career was when I had my first son back from work, where I was the director and I loved what I did, but he just wasn't doing well in daycare and so I had to make that decision to step back.
Laura Bashore:And so for the first few months I just was like what am I going to do? You know, I defined myself by what my job was, what my career was, and now that was taken away from me. It really threw me into kind of a tailspin like I haven't experienced before. And a couple months into that, people started asking me for some help with their resumes and interviewing skills, because the place where I was the director was the career center here in San Diego. And I soon realized, oh, I could turn this into a business. I could do this while I'm at home raising my son, and I could take it slowly. And you know, almost nine years later now, that business is thriving, is morphing into working more as a business coach, and I also own two other businesses now. So I went from never wanting to be an entrepreneur, much like what you were sharing earlier, to now I have three successful businesses. So you know, failure can lead to good things.
Mary Fain Brandt:Well, and I think for women, you know, for the moms out there, they might have that you know having to step away like you're raising, rising up and as a career professional or as a business owner, and then you step away and your income drops. You know who, who you are like, who am I without my business, without my career? So I think there's a lot you know to go in deeper on that from the female perspective and the mom perspective, but that's a whole different show, laura. But I'm glad you started your business.
Mary Fain Brandt:Because we got to meet and we get to collaborate on all sorts of projects and watch both of our businesses grow. Because I think we started around the same time about nine years that sounds about right. Ok, I think you have another statistic same time, about nine years. That sounds about right. Okay, I think you have another statistic to share with our audience.
Laura Bashore:Oh well, you know, we would be nothing without our statistics. We love to share this and bring this in. So leads in again to what we're talking about here, which is that startups that pivot once or twice early in their journey raise 2.5 times more money and then have three to six times better user growth and are 52% more likely to scale prematurely. So basically, that's a study by startup Janone. Am I saying that right, Janone? I think so. I wanted to say no.
Mary Fain Brandt:It's basically saying like fail fast to get that out of the way. So if something's not working Like you don't want to keep trying it for a year, like I did with courses, or actually probably two years.
Laura Bashore:Right like quit beating the dead horse. You know, if you see it's not working, change it up because it's not doing the same thing and expecting a different result. It's not going to do it.
Mary Fain Brandt:You know, I think the market shift like we're changing at rapid pace. I mean we're throwing AI in there and marketing's changing jobs are changing, what clients want changed, so you need to reflect on that. So I think there's a lot to be said about that. I think, Laura, the biggest thing for me was changing the way I viewed failure. You mentioned the beginning of this episode that failure is this dirty ugly word, right?
Laura Bashore:Yeah, it's got this stigmatism attached to it.
Mary Fain Brandt:Ooh, failure. You're like don't say the F word, don't say you failed, don't ever admit that you weren't perfect, right? I kind of want to just want to debunk that and the age thing, but that's a different show. So there's two things Like I hate the stigmatism with age that we can't talk about it and I hate the stigmatism with failure that you're not supposed to talk about your failures. If you want to be seen as a legit business person, I think we need to talk more about our failures so that we all can learn from them and grow from them. It's not a dirty ugly word.
Mary Fain Brandt:I learned decades ago to view failure as a learning opportunity. I failed miserably when I was the office manager, area manager for a company decades ago. Miserably did I fail. And so I took the staff we had this meeting and I took that as a learning opportunity to hear how they saw that I was failing. So it's a learning opportunity. And then you can reframe that.
Mary Fain Brandt:Take that data what did you learn from it? What mistakes did you make? What are you not going to do in the future? Or what are you going to do in the future so you don't make that same mistake, and I think that's where people get it wrong. When people are making the same mistake over and over, then you're really not paying attention to why you're failing right. Yeah, so I think one of the things as a business owner you need to do your research first Is your idea of your business, or, if you're going to add or change something in your business, have you done your market research? Is there a need, a want or desire for it? Because what people are looking for is not always what they need or what you think they need. Sometimes it's just the language. Like I used to say, linkedin optimization Nobody cares about that. But if you say, turn your LinkedIn profile into a lead magnet, they're like what?
Laura Bashore:There you go. Yeah, exactly, verbiage is so important, absolutely. And the last thing I'd add to the mind shift part, or shifting your mindset, is that, uh, I expect to fail, and I think that's why I typically don't get too caught up on it. So if you go in expecting that there's going to be some level of failure, what it means is that you've already put together your plan B and C, and sometimes D. You know, put your problem solving hat on instead of just dwelling on what didn't work right and think about how you can change that. Another thing that's thank you. Another thing that's really helped me is figuring out how to build support. So, like.
Laura Bashore:I mentioned a little bit earlier in our show today, joining an association for my industry was an amazing thing to do, but then also reaching out to those who I felt were at the level where I wanted to be, those who were also at a peer level with me, like you and I, where we could start to bounce ideas off of each other and not look at it as competition but look at it as how can we grow together, and I think our business relationship Mary has been one of those things. It's just, it's been amazing for me and then- Me too.
Mary Fain Brandt:I love it. I learn from you, we collaborate, we bring different strengths and skill sets to the table and I think we're just a really good balance. So, finding that right person and I just want to give a shout out to Jen Drago, who's my accountability partner here in Arizona. She helps me, like, share ideas and strip them down to see is that really something my audience wants, right? Is that something that my clients, like I, you got to have that person that you can bounce those ideas around, and I also, even though, like you and I, are in the same space. We've pivoted a little here. But having someone that's outside that space, that understands what you do but isn't looking for your services, can be that fresh eyes, that goes well. That doesn't really make sense to me. Like, yeah, like why are you offering that? You know jen likes to tell me I'm not allowed to buy new programs, I'm not allowed to launch new services, you know I like that yeah she's my no girl and I love it with you.
Laura Bashore:It's all about, like the shiny new things. You know you're very much that, so I, I, so that shiny object syndrome.
Mary Fain Brandt:I'm like, ooh, what's this tool do? What's, yes, my AI tools? I'm like I'm doing a good job, but I'm like, oh my, my, my certified AI consultant group, they're using that. Do I need to use it? You know I've learned right to say no, but that's a whole different episode. So we're talking about building a support system so when you are failing, you have someone you can go talk to your networking groups, your peer support groups that provide, you know, a supportive community, but also that can not only supportive but can say well, you know that that didn't work out or you shouldn't be doing that. I feel like there's that balance between supportive and someone saying you know, get up, do the hard work, mary, it'll pay off. Like one little failure shouldn't lead to a catastrophe.
Laura Bashore:Yeah, and and with your networking. That's exactly where you find those connections. That's why it's so important as a business owner to go out and do that. And we're not talking about just showing up at a mixer once a month. No, find your space in a real networking group where it's weekly, because you can't earn that kind of trust with someone until you get to know them on a deeper level and it really just helps, you know, it just helps you as a business owner because, even if you consider yourself to be a solopreneur, you don't get successful on your own. You have to have groups around you.
Mary Fain Brandt:Yeah. So this next point that we're going to talk about, I don't really do this. So document and reflect. I reflect, but I don't really document my failures Like I know what they, I feel like I know what they are and at this point maybe in the business they're not as big or they're not as shocking. Right, I don't know how to really describe this one, because I don't keep a failure journal. Maybe I would call it a learning journal, but I don't even journal on that. So, laura, do you, because I, I don't. I don't.
Laura Bashore:I don't either. So when we thought about this part, I mean, I know that this works, for a lot of people is having journal, but I just I think when I see failure journal, I'm not sure that that's something that works for me. I really kind of think that, you know, honestly, it's just for me it's lame. I don't know. That's not the way that I would approach it, but I do take meticulous notes on everything. You saw it even when we were at PodFest together.
Laura Bashore:Here I was with my little remarkable and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to get this and write this down. So what I do is I don't refer to it as being reflective, it's more of my strategies. So I take my notes on what's going on and then I'll write out what would be the better approach next time, you know. So I write those as the idea comes to me. So I will either write that down in my phone, like in my notes section, so that I have it, or plop it into my one of my AI apps that I have and save it there for later, you know, because then I have strategy that I'm working on. So that's kind of the way I do that. But and the only reason I say that is because if you just label it as a failure journal, then you're just kind of focusing in on how things didn't work out instead of really getting to that next level, which is about how do I make this better so that in the future I can have success.
Mary Fain Brandt:I love that. Um yeah, you loved your remarkable at PodFest. I want one, but I just I can't spend that kind of money. I'm like no, no, maybe one day, um one day, uh.
Laura Bashore:Hey, it was sad, or it was, to continue to buy those yellow pads of notes because that is, and then things would be lost everywhere. I mean, if I opened up one of my doors here from like two years ago, you'd see pile.
Mary Fain Brandt:Well, you guys, we hope that this was a you know, mind opening, eye opening podcast on failure and why you should fail hard and fail. First, Just a recap A expect to fail as a business owner. It's going to happen and that's okay. Reframe that is into a learning opportunity. Then that's okay, Reframe that is into a learning opportunity.
Mary Fain Brandt:Find the humor in the failure, Like I don't talk about failing like yesterday if I failed, but I do think it's healthy to talk to other people about the failure and I think it's healthy to share that in larger groups, whether that's networking, speaking or social. After you've come out of the failure and you've recouped from it, Build a support team that can help you through the failure or help you avoid failure, Because you don't always have to fail to learn something right. I don't want anyone to think that we're talking about hey, go out and fail, Just know it's going to happen. We're not perfect individuals. The world is not perfect. We are all going to fail at something, whether it's going to happen. We're not perfect individuals. The world is not perfect. We are all going to fail at something, whether it's big, medium or large. So just expect it. Find some humor in it, learn from that, and if you need to journal it or Google Doc it or AI it, then put it in one of those tools. Do you have anything to add to that, Laura?
Laura Bashore:I think that's a pretty good recap. You know it's just about don't let failure stop you from moving forward, Don't let it make you stagnant.
Mary Fain Brandt:Yes, don't let failure stop you from moving forward. Yes, absolutely, I love that. I think that we're going to end on that note, because that's a great quote, laura. I appreciate that. Hey guys, so our next episode is all about how you can grow your business by speaking, and these can be paid or free speaking gigs, which actually can give you a good ROI. Laura and I are going to share our exact steps on how we both have spoken at a variety of events and acquired clients right from the stage or from the group, from having two people in the room to maybe 200. We're going to share with you the good, the bad and the ugly and how you can prepare to speak on more stages or groups, networking groups, and how to actually launch that business, that speaking side of your business, and make some money.
Laura Bashore:Absolutely, so don't forget to subscribe, rate and review this podcast, because we want to help reach more people and continue to give you guys the great information that you're looking for and why you listen to us weekly. So until next time, here's to good coffee, great conversations and even greater success. Ciao, ciao.
Mary Fain Brandt:If you enjoyed the podcast, show us some love. Please rate, review and subscribe to our podcast, and if you have any feedback, go ahead and share that with us too, because we want to hear from you. Until then, stay focused, stay motivated and stay caffeinated.
