Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Failing Does Not Mean You're a Failure

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Failing Does Not Mean You're a Failure · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

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  3, 10, 1, 0, ignition, liftoff, Ending small business failure.
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  Welcome to the Small Biz Chat podcast with a number 1 small business expert Melinda Emerson.
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  Belinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
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  you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
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  Now here's the small biz lady herself.
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  Melinda Everson.
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  Hi, everybody.
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  I'm Melinda the small biz lady, and welcome to the small biz chat podcast.
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  I'm really excited today to bring you yet another small biz lady diary episode.
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  And this week, I'm gonna talk to you about something really serious.
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  You know, family does not mean failure.
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  And this I wanted to talk about this because I got an email the other day from one of my
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  readers who said that they just made a really big mistake in their business, and they are
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  really struggling trying to figure out how to get past it.
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  And You know, I really took this to heart because I remember early on in my business, I
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  thought I was my business.
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  So when my business hit a rough road, it felt like such a personal failure to me.
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  But you know what?
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  Listen.
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  There is really no such thing as failure in business.
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  Just some lessons get to be more expensive than others.
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  You know, so you if you can look at any failing as a lesson, you win.
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  But if you want to, you know, you made a big mistake, maybe it cost you a big customer,
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  maybe you sent a really sensitive email to the wrong person.
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  You know, that happens when you're moving too fast and not paying attention.
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  You know, there's all kinds of things that we do I remember one time in my business, I had a
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  customer that really was obnoxious and really, really difficult to work with.
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  They were a micro managing pain in the butt.
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  And one day, I had them on a conference call, and I had Converse in another colleague, and I
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  actually thought I had disconnected the call before I completely had a diarrhea of the mouth
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  about them.
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  And you know what?
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  My client heard my entire conversation about what I thought about them.
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  That was terrible because when they waited an hour and called me back, and told me that they
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  felt like they no longer needed my assistance since they were stressing me out so much, I was
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  so embarrassed.
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  And these things happen.
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  Luckily, I was able to patch up that relationship with that client, but listen,
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  First of all, you need to be careful about saying bad things about clients anywhere.
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  You know, it's I it's amazing to me sometimes I look on Facebook or Instagram or something.
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  I see somebody complaining about a customer.
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  Do not do that.
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  You need customers.
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  First of all, but secondly, you don't want to Everybody make mistakes.
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  We are human beings.
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  Right?
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  Your employees are gonna make mistakes, but you're gonna make a mistake as the business
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  owner.
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  It might be hiring somebody you shouldn't have.
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  It might be paying for something that you you and your gut thought that they might rip you
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  off, and then they actually did.
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  And then you're like, wow.
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  I just gave that $10,000.
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  You know?
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  So you're gonna make mistakes, but you don't have to live there.
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  And your future doesn't have anything to do with one mistake you made in your past.
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  And so it's really, really important that you know, failing at one thing doesn't mean you're
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  gonna fail at everything.
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  And failing with one customer doesn't mean you aren't gonna have a 100 customers that love
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  you.
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  But you gotta you gotta figure out how you're gonna get yourself up.
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  Right?
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  And and the thing about it is is that It's okay to be sad when you make a mistake.
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  Right?
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  You know, I'm I'm gonna give you this.
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  I'm gonna let you say Okay.
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  I'm gonna give you either one day for a little problem, a little mistake you made.
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  Let's say you get to pout for a week over a big problem.
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  But that's it.
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  You can't live there.
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  You have to really be able to look at it for what it is.
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  You know, you gotta live to fight another day.
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  And there are absolutely days when you're gonna feel like you are a chicken salad.
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  Right?
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  And I call it my chicken salad days because most of the day, when you get up, the sun is
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  shining, you wanna run for the hills, go after your business, girl, you know, but there are
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  gonna be plenty of days where you hear no.
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  No.
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  No.
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  No.
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  You you get rejection.
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  Dear John emails.
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  I call him.
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  When you get a rejection email from a client you've been pitching, And what I'm gonna tell
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  you is that that's okay because there are plenty more customers out there.
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  I mean, one of the greatest things I have think has been invented in in the world is LinkedIn.
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  Like, you can find somebody on LinkedIn.
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  You can find decision makers on LinkedIn.
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  And it's really, really important.
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  So you wanna make sure that you position yourself to move on.
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  You don't have to live there.
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  You know, one negative Yelp review does not a crisis make.
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  And so you wanna be really, really specific about how you're gonna get over bad days.
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  Right?
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  But my father used to tell me that we should thank god for bad days because we wouldn't even
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  know good days if it weren't for bad days.
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  So bad days are important so that you can appreciate the good days.
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  And I wanna impart that to you.
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  You know, my daddy told me that when I was a little girl, and I'm gonna tell you that you
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  need bad days.
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  So when the days, when your customer calls you, and they say send them the invoice, or we've
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  already wired the money to your account, those are your woohoo.
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  Holy game.
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  Days, but let me tell you something on them days when your client sends you a nasty email.
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  I need to speak to you.
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  You got a man up or woman up.
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  You gotta put your big girl panties on.
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  And pick up the phone and take whatever ear beating you deserve.
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  And then after you do that, give yourself a 1 hour one day.
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  If it's a really big screw up, I'll even get you a week, but you can live there.
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  Soak on it.
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  Think about it, think about how you're gonna apologize, and then keep it moving.
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  It is really, really important that you don't live there because one failing does not Me, you
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  are a failure.
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  And even if your business goes under, and let's face it, guys, a lot of people's businesses do
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  That doesn't make you a failure either.
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  That just means the next time you're gonna be that much better because I am certain There are
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  lots of people you can talk to out here who their first business was a hot mess.
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  Let's look at Oprah even.
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  When she first started on Own was a hot mess.
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  Oprah had to swoop in from wherever she was and take over running on herself.
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  Because the first iteration of Own was crazy.
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  And then once she got it back on track, started doing her own original programming and stuff,
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  and figuring out who her audience really was because she thought everybody that was watching
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  her TV show would come watch her network, and that's not what happened.
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  And she had to regroup But now if mother Oprah has to regroup, you and your little business
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  definitely have to regroup from time to time.
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  But there's nothing wrong with that.
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  There's nothing wrong with learning and growing.
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  There's nothing wrong with pivoting.
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  There's nothing wrong with reinventing your business model.
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  There's also nothing wrong with telling a client you're sorry and apologizing.
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  And sending flowers or a fruit basket or something or offering to do a whole another
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  project or job free to show them how much you appreciate their business or how much you want
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  another chance.
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  Now sometimes that doesn't always work.
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  I mean, I can remember back in the day when I had my video production company, we screwed up
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  a really big job that involved a major celebrity.
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  And when I found out about it, we went to the client, we apologized, we offered to do another
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  shoot free.
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  We obviously couldn't redo that because they weren't gonna fly the celebrity back out again
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  to do another video shoot, but we offered to do a whole another job free.
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  And we did that job free.
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  And you know what?
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  They did not give us any more business ever again.
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  However, you know what?
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  Happens.
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  You gotta keep it moving.
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  I mean, it was a tough lesson to learn.
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  It was a very expensive lesson to learn, but it was, in fact, a lesson.
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  It didn't mean that my whole video production company sucked that we never ever should do
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  another video project again, but things happen.
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  I mean, sometimes things just don't work out.
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  Sometimes your employees let you down.
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  But guess what?
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  Even if your employees make a mistake, you as the business owner, it's on you.
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  You gotta take responsibility.
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  When you put that shingle out and said you're open for business, you take responsibility for
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  all of your employees and yourself.
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  So if one of your employees let somebody down, that means you let them down.
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  And you can't scapegoat one of your employees or throw one of your employees into the bus.
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  You got a man up or woman up and say, no.
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  It was me.
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  I'm very sorry.
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  What can I do to fix it?
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  Is there anything I can do to fix it?
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  Please tell me.
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  And that is what you need.
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  And so I just wanna tell you this because I know that you are a business owner.
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  That means you got a 3 ring circus going on.
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  And there are gonna be days when you feel like putting your head in the lion's mouth, but
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  listen.
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  Don't do that.
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  Just regroup call your one person that helps talk you from off the ledge when you need to be
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  talked off the ledge, you know, go take a bubble bath, go get your favorite ice cream,
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  whatever it is.
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  Woosaw it out And then think about how you cannot make that mistake again.
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  Pull your team in.
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  Do an after action review so that you can figure out where the breakdown was and how the
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  client got disappointed in the first place.
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  Use this experience as a learning opportunity for yourself and your team.
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  That is how you turn a failure into a win because at the end of the day, guys, You never
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  lose either you win or you learn.
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  And that's it.
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  That's all I have for you.
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  So let me leave you with your action point for the day.
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  Okay.
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  You had a major setback.
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  It happens.
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  So what?
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  Give yourself one day, 1 hour, 1 week to be sad.
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  Then learn the lesson and keep it moving.
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  And if you need any more information about how to take your business to the next level, head
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  on over to succeed as your own boss.com.
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  Have a
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  great course called fix your business that'll help you get on the right track and take your
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  business to the next level.
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  I'm Melinda Emerson, the small business lady, and you have been listening to the small biz
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  chat podcast.
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  I'll see you soon.
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  Thank you for listening to the Small Biz chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
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  For more resources and small business success strategies, visit succeed as your own boss.com.
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  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday.