From Mud to realization

My company had its shining moments, we had a good product/service and in fact the first three years were successful, so what happened? Why? I won't bore you with the story of those 6-7 years but the answer to those questions lies in not doing the answer I finally gleaned while face down in the mud.

It was the day after we had to close the business and blatant reality was dark. Winter was turning slowly to spring and by that I mean the 8 foot wall of grey ice next to our driveway was finally melting. I had read every power of positive thinking book out there and some twice while trying to convince myself that there was a silver lining. I kept asking myself why I had failed. All comparisons to Edison's 8,000 light bulb tries failed to cheer me up. I was supposed to be successful. I had watched others succeed and had confidentially joked with them that I would invite them to my castle in Ireland someday. Now, someday seemed to be never ever day. What had I missed? The answer would not come and the reality of failure was painful. I decided to go for a walk. After all I had no business to claim my time and nothing else to do. I was walking along taking in the beauty of the mountains trying to feel something, and looking at the positive side that I at least had time to take a walk finally, when as if pushed hard from behind I fell into the post-snow thaw mud. I just laid there wondering why I should get up. I laid there face down stuck in the mud and cried and cried. When I was finished feeling sorry for myself and grieving my lost business I suddenly knew, I knew why I had failed. I knew the one strategy of success we had neglected which had caused the failure and it was embarrassing. We had a good product/service but it all had come down not doing this one thing. I had gotten so busy that I had forgotten, put off, not placed the importance into "marketing" my product/service. How many years had I wasted in doing the efforts of business only to find at the end that my product/service was worthless when not sold into the hands of consumers? If consumers did not know about my product then I wasn't selling and if my product wasn't selling than I did not have a business. Like, I thought, as I started extricating myself from the tear and snow laden mud, me, no business.

What an idiot I am, I thought as I sat up. I have years of award-winning marketing experience and I, the self-professed marketing guru even failed. What about my colleagues who had less knowledge and experience? I thought of my many entrepreneur friends and the advice I had given them. Had I followed that same advice myself? And, why hadn't I? No money and no time for marketing popped into my head before I could stop it. I knew better! Aside from being mud-caked I was embarrassed and mad. And right there in the mud it hit me. I knew exactly what we could have done right. I knew exactly how I could have been a million billionaire. And I knew exactly what I should have shared and shown by example to my entrepreneur friends. Really it was like that, startling and immediate, like sun rays filling my mud soaked soul. I got up, hobbled home, threw my clothes in the rubbish (I could because I knew now that I would be a success and could buy new clothes) and sat down and wrote an outline. Why not? I had the answer to make any company rich and successful. I wrote it, I applied it and within one week I was bringing in money again and selling my new business product/service. I was making money because my product/service was in the hands of customers. When it worked and worked fast and well, I decided I needed to make up for the bad example I had been and share this plan with my entrepreneur friends. I followed this very same plan below, written from my muddy notes. Here it is unbelievably simple and powerfully effective and something any entrepreneur with a product/service can do.