“It is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong.”
– Warren Buffett, Investor
Greetings from Anaheim, CA and the NAMM Show! The show officially opens this morning, but yesterday was a very full day with many association meetings scheduled. I participated in a few of them. It is great to see how the various “sharing groups / purchasing groups” are evolving. More retailers are realizing that they have far more in common than they thought and that there are many benefits to be realized by sharing their ideas, frustrations and experiences. I'll be posting more about this subject later in the week.
Last evening, I had an informal meeting with a colleague who is here from The United Kingdom. At one point in our discussion – as he was describing a new initiative that he was planning – he said, “Ready, Fire, Aim.”
Translation: No one can ever be assured that a new product, promotion or business plan will succeed – or proceed exactly as planned. There will be so many new products and promotions introduced here at the NAMM Show this week. The executives and teams that put them together have high hopes that they will succeed – as planned. And I certainly hope that they do!
Most likely, there will be some unexpected factors that may cause the product or promotion to achieve less than optimal results. But at least the companies bought the product to the market. And they will succeed eventually – if they dedicate energy to discovering what went wrong, fixing it and trying again.
But on the other side of the coin, there are many companies that are always “late to the market” or “still deciding” how to proceed. These companies are suffering from “paralysis by analysis.” They want an absolute guarantee that their new product or program will succeed; and they will not bring it to market until they have this assurance.
Over the years I have seen this happen time and time again. Someone at the meeting will always say, “How can we be sure that this will succeed?” And then the collected doubts come to the fore. Indecision reigns supreme.
The answer: No one can ever predict precise results. The marketplace will tell us if they want our new product or find our promotion compelling. The marketplace votes with their pocket book. But only if we actually get the product launched!
We can use our research, experience and observation to help us get “READY.”
Next, we need to “FIRE.” Get the product out the door; execute the promotion; realize the idea.
Only then, can we we really “AIM.”
Once we see the initial results, we need to get back to work to refine, replace or re-launch.
The marketplace gave us some great advice. They gave us the answer – or at least a clue as to how we could redesign the product to better meet their needs.
We achieve success through our failures. If you want to want to have more success… fail more often. But – you need to learn from your failures – and then try again.
“Ready, Fire, Aim.”
Good luck to everyone here at the show!
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