The Art of Small Wins: Fail Small, Fail Fast, Do it Again

It can be tempting to try and take on too much at once when starting a business. After all, you want to see results as quickly as possible, right? However, this is often where new businesses fail. It's more important to focus on the little things and learn the process of starting a business before taking on too much.

A very good example of this is when  I first started out in business, I thought I needed a CRM for our sales reps, a customer relationship management system. So I went down the path, took the time, took the energy, and started reviewing different software providers.

They all have their videos and how you can integrate everything into everything and everything connects. In my early twenties, indeed, that was really exciting. So what did I do? I put down my credit card and spend tens of thousands of dollars on what I thought was the perfect software solution. Fast forward, instead of six months to implement the event, a year after we finally launched the software.

Our team didn't touch it. Why? Well, it wasn't practical. It wasn't usable. See, I spent so much time integrating this whole thing into the business that I didn't actually think about how it would impact the day-to-day of our business.

So the end result was tens of thousands of dollars were literally wasted hundreds of hours of mad hours that could have been spent on something more productive, totally down the drain. And it all happened because I didn't get the feedback and I didn't reiterate as we got the feedback instead we try to force and then result onto the team.

Put another way, I should have failed small, failed fast, and reiterated because if I'd included little things here and there rather than going for a big solution right away and using little pieces along the way, I would have gotten the feedback from the sales team, from the admin department, from operations, all those little pieces along the way.

So the best lesson in your business, whether you're in real estate or you're running another type of business, is rather than going for the big, big touchdown all out of the gate, to solve all your problems, tend to all problems, deal with the little things in the context of the big thing.

And every time you push a little bit, get the feedback, bring it back, reiterate, fail small, pace small, learn big, and move forward.

Marcin Drozdz

The information contained herein is for general guidance on matters of interest only. This information contained herein is not intended to provide you with any advice on financial planning, investment, insurance, legal, accounting, tax or similar matters and should not be relied upon for such purposes. M1 Real Capital Inc, Marcin Drozdz is not a financial, legal or tax adviser. You should assess whether you require such advisers and additional information and, where appropriate, seek independent professional advice. You understand this to be an expression of opinions and not professional advice. You are solely responsible for any actions you take with the content and hold M1 Real Capital Inc, Marcin Drozdz or any of his affiliates harmless in any event or claim.