The email where I share all my best mistakes from the last week or two in business, parenting, marriage, and life!
This week’s fails were doozies (even for me). I literally almost sank a boat…
Le’t jump in and start talking about my 5 biggest fails this week!
NOTE: This email is all about sharing failure, but in the interest of finishing on a positive note, I’m also going to include a “QUICK WIN” section at the end of each week’s 5–failsFriday going forward! It will be in the PS at the end of today’s email…
OK, let’s go…
FAIL #1: My Fall Sale B-O-M-B-E-D
OK, so I’m used to success.
I truly expect every email I send out, every podcast interview I do, every website I build to WIN at a high level!
But of course, that’s not how real life works haha.
I always have a “1st Day of Fall” sell each year that features an amazing Quarterly membership price!
I love to reward commitment to our programs with an amazing discount.
Usually these Quarterly bundles and discounts fly off the shelves…
But this year my “Fall Sale” was pretty much a “Dumpster Fail Sale” (hashtag, trademark, #dumpsterfail).
Now, like the stock market, promotions are cyclical…
Sales go up…
Sales go down…
The ebb and flow of entrepreneur life… right?
But this Fall Sale TANKED, like AWFUL lol…
Low open rates… terrible click through rates… LOW sales…
Whenever something doesn’t work, I always ask “What do i have control over, what can i control…”
… evaluate the results… liver, learn and move on.
I can totally see where this BOMB was all on me…
My subject lines and copy were “meh”…
My timing was awful…
My promotion weak (I didn’t run any ads, or even post the sale on social media) …
In short… you get out what you put in…
And I didn’t put much effort in…
Blame it on being a little lazy or down as the days turn cool and skies turn Fall grey…
But in truth, this fail is TOTALLY on me.
LESSON LEARNED: When you own a business, every sale, every week, every day, it’s on YOU to go kill it and drag it back to the cave. You can’t go through the motions and win.
Virtual school, running a business, and Fall rainy weather has left me in a FOG lately…
Normal things I never miss have slipped through the cracks for a week or two now.
For example: our boats and watercraft.
Living on a lake there is always something happening near the water…
Fishing, jet ski’s tied to the dock, random floats…
Heck last year, our ladder fell in around November and we just left it at the bottom all winter (I ain’t going in after it in 60 degree water)!
The other night Isaac and I went fishing on our little 10 foot pond prowler.
It’s fully equipped with a battery, trolling motor, chairs, tackle, nets, oars, etc…
I checked the weather and saw rain coming, but just kept putting off unloading the boat…
Then I got home one night and it started raining.
And the boat started filling up with water.
And ALL THE THINGS were still in the boat.
So here I was. Out in the rain, in the dark, in the cold, in soggy socks (couldn’t find my shoes) unloading a boat with my son Isaac…
Racing the rain to get the weight down enough so it would float with water in it LOL. Ug…
LESSON LEARNED: unload the boat before the monsoon hits…
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FAIL #3: Wrote ZERO words in my book this week…
So one of my goals before the end of 2020 is to finish my first book…
It’s always on my calendar, my to-do list, my priority statement, vision board, etc.
I usually chip away a little at it each week but gosh, it was just on the back burner all week.
That makes me sad.
I did a lot this week, but that one thing NOT getting done really irks me.
I may block off Sunday afternoon to get some work done on that thing.
LESSON LEARNED: If it’s REALLY important, it will show up on your calendar. It’s important. Putting it on the calendar right now for next week…
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FAIL #4: Turned my mic off by accident MID PODCAST recording…
Every year Jocelyn and I release a Quit-iversary Edition of The Flipped Lifestyle Podcast on September 27th (That’s the first day we were at home as self-employed entrepreneurs).
We sat down last week to record it and somehow, I turned off my mic halfway through the episode!
Ug… it was such a good conversation…
But we missed it because my thumbs apparently have a mind of their own and turned the mic off at the 29 minute mark…
NOTHING is worse than missing good content from a tech glitch!
And yes, nearly a decade into podcasting, we still mess that up from time to time!
LESSON LEARNED: Constantly… check… levels!!!! lol. You are never good enough to assume the tech is working!!!!
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Fail #5: Gave a team member bad info and wasted her time… AND TIME IS MONEY Y’all!!!!
We have an amazing team…
They work hard and do everything we ask!
So last week, I asked our Community Manager to make a print bulletin for our community.
It would include case studies, a calendar of upcoming member calls and events, and other cool bonuses…
Once finished, we’d print it and have the kids pack em up and MAIL them out to our Flip Your Life Community members!
I was SURE that the commercial printer we have in houre would bold the paper in half, church bulletin style.
So Keri set to work and designed a BEAUTIFUL bulletin… spent a long time on it y’all, and it looked GREAT!
But when I went to print it… um… trifold only.
*facepalm*
So Keri had to make it again from scratch with a new layout…
MY BAD!
She’s too nice to say it, but i’m pretty sure she wanted to run ME through the trifolder that day lol…
LESSON LEARN: IF you tell someone you are SURE, you better be 100% SURE…
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That’s it for this week’s 5–FailsFriday! I hope you learned a lot from my mistakes. I assure you, these were not my only mess ups this week – I mess up on a daily basis. But you know what we say here at FlippedLifestyle.com…
It ain’t gotta be perfect!
Until next week, get out there, take action, and do whatever it take to Flip Your Life!
Shane & Jocelyn
The Flipped Lifestyle Podcast
– PS: QUICK WIN – Here is a quick win for you this week! If you want to get a GREAT open rate for your next email you send to your list, or even an epic social media post for your Facebook group or page, send out a message that says “What’s Frustrating You RIGHT NOW?” in the subject line, or the first sentence of your post! Invite your audience to comment or reply and watch the conversation flow!
Every time I use this subject line I get massive open rates and engagement! This is the #1 subject line I use to warm up my list/audience if I think it’s growing a bit cold. Try it this week!
PSS: I don’t spell check or proofread my 5–failsfriday emails. So if your retinas ar burning from all my grammar and spelling errors… I apologize in advance (Talking to you Jocelyn when you read this in your inbox haha)
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