Fails

Do you have epic fails in your life that have defined you? Sadly, you will continue to err–as you are human. While you may want to beat yourself up and scream at mistakes, your disappointments provide you the chance for one of the greatest lessons.

Failure is all around you. From raising children to working a job, you make mistakes every day. A young toddler even fails at things too. How many times have you told your infant not to touch the stove?

It wasn’t until they touch the stove and feel the scorching pain that they realize they’ve made a horrible error. However, the burn will go away, but the pain they experienced will teach them a lesson.

Your life is remarkably like that of a toddler. You’re going through life learning as you go. Did you know that the fear of failure can often be more traumatizing than the epic fails that you experience in life?

It’s natural to want to avoid things that cause you pain to develop anxiety and panic. The child who touched the hot stove might be so scared of getting burnt again that they won’t come within five feet of the cooker. It’s unrealistic to avoid a stove for the rest of the child’s life, and you can’t avoid living for fear of falling or getting hurt.

The Persistence of Walt Disney

Who doesn’t love Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy? Did you know that these beloved characters were a struggle to bring to the public? The Disney empire wasn’t always the thriving success it is today.

Walt was an advocate for falling down a few times and often showcased his failures as much as his successes. When people hear the name Disney, they associate it with prosperity, but few know that the legend behind this empire filed for bankruptcy.

All the pressures in life caused Disney to have a nervous breakdown. Even once his characters became a household name, he found himself without money again when he created Snow White’s story. He had to get a bank loan to get the movie off the ground.

Indeed, Disney once even told reporters that it was essential for life to kick you in the teeth a few times. Those times teach you more lessons than fame and prosperity could ever do.

Everyone has a story, even the rich and famous, who seem to have it all going for them. It’s what you do during those times of adversity that matters most.

Fifteen Enduring Life Lessons

Thinking back on the lessons you’ve learned throughout life, you can see the ones that made you and the ones that broke you. However, here are 15 things that you can learn from those experiences.

1. Humility

The epic fails you experience in life will teach you humility. Once you’ve had your ego shattered a time or two, you look for new paths and develop a greater understanding.

You will learn to right the wrong that caused you to fail, and you can go on to fulfill your dreams. There is nothing more sobering than falling a few times to make you humble.

2. Empathy

Many people have sympathy because they feel sorry for others. However, once you’ve been to rock bottom, you learn how to empathize. You can relate to others on a deeper level when you’ve been in those dark places. You will have compassion for others, and it changes your perceptions of things.

3. Resourcefulness

If everything is handed to you on a silver platter, you do not need to be resourceful. However, once your finances have tanked and you’ve been on skid row, you realize how important it is to find new resources. Desperation can lead to inspiration, and you will learn new methods to make things happen.

4. Better Coping Skills

When you’re younger, you may use alcohol as a coping method for stress. However, as you age, you learn that you must be mentally and spiritually sound for your family and career. When the emotions roll in like the ocean’s tide, you find better ways to deal with them.

You may have turned to prescription medications or alcohol in the past, you now have learned to meditate or journal to get rid of all the angst you feel.

5. Develop a New Perspective

Through your epic fails and disappointments in life, you learn how to put happiness into perspective. Being happy is a state of being and not a destination. You discover how to view things in proportion, and you understand that you can only embrace the moment.

6. Grasp Time Management

Everyone gets 24 hours a day and seven days a week. No matter who you’re or how much money you have, time is life’s biggest equalizer. When you have a few failures, you learn how to manage your time.

If you don’t learn to manage time, then it will control you. If you want efficiency and to improve your result, then you know strategies to help you manage your time more effectively.

7. Better Planning Skills

Establishing a concrete action plan to accomplish your goals is crucial to success. Failures teach you to become a better planner. You need to refine your approach and not alter your goals. By adjusting past methods and techniques, you learn how to make your dreams possible.

8. Discover New Meaning

Life’s disappointments push you to uncover new meaning. You’re compelled to ponder your motives for wanting things. Either it’s important enough for you to move forward, or it’s not that significant, and you quit and give up. You’ll look at everything quite differently after epic fails than you did before.

9. Gratitude

Sometimes the pursuit of happiness and financial gain makes you lose sight of what matters. Ask a homeless person that lives on the street how wonderful it was to have a house and a comfy bed to sleep in. Hitting rock bottom forges you to be thankful for what you have in life.

10. Financial Responsibility

Once you’ve been through bankruptcy court or been on the brink of financial ruin, you have a whole new meaning for managing your finances. You soon learn that those $5 gourmet coffees on the way to work are an extravagance that you don’t need. Your epic fails in life teaches you how to be responsible with your money.

11. Embrace Your Faith

Everyone has different faiths and beliefs, which is your right in this country. However, one thing that you will learn is how to call on your higher power in times of adversity. Whether you are Christian, Muslim, or atheist, everyone has something that they can call on for strength and help.

12. Your “Real” Friends

It’s easy to have a lot of friends when everything is going grand. However, it’s the ones that stick with you when you have no money, have lost everything, and have no status to offer them that count. You will discover who is your true friend when you walk through the darkest times, and they still stand beside you.

13. Examine Your Heart

Once you fail, you have no choice but to look inside to see what might have caused you to have these disappointments. Analyzing the inside can help you move past the things that held you back, and you can succeed in the future.

14. Money and Prestige isn’t everything

How many times have you seen a movie or TV stars focus so much of their attention on their careers and the pursuit of money that they neglected their family? Having money in the bank and a few luxuries are understandable, but some people will trade everything for fame and fortune. If you lose your family but have a bank full of money, is it worth it?

15. Change Habits

A recent study found that 45 percent of your daily behaviors are forged from habits. If you have bad habits that could be holding you back, it’s time to evaluate them and learn methods to conquer those tendencies. Additionally, when you add new, better habits to the mix, you can achieve anything you set your mind to do.

Final Thoughts: Learn From Jim Carrey About How to Move on From Epic Fails

Your life will never be perfect, nor should you expect it to be. When you stumble and fall along life’s journey, it’s all about getting up and having the courage and strength to start again. Did you know that the famous actor Jim Carrey had many failures?

He is the winner of many People’s Choice and Golden Globe awards, yet he doesn’t even have a high school education. His family was so poor he had to drop out of school at 15 to be a janitor to help with finances. Carrey struggled with depression, anxiety, and the fear of failure.

In an interview, he stated that he used positive affirmations and visualization techniques to help him achieve his goals. Carrey is an outspoken believer in the Law of Attraction–using positive energy to attract the best in life. What’s your destiny? Where do you want to go in life? Don’t let your failures define your future. Using your life lessons, you have the power to overcome.

3 Attorney Marketing Fails to Avoid If You Want More Clients

According to the American Bar Association, there are 1,352,027 registered active attorneys in the U.S in 2019. The number keeps growing each year, which means law firms have more competition and difficulty cutting through the noise.

Nowadays, most people spend hours online and when they need an attorney, they’ll search for firms online before making a call. Then, they’ll ask family and friends for recommendations.

Law firms can’t rely on the quality of their services as their only marketing method. They need an active social media presence, a website, high search engine rankings, and positive online reviews.

Here are 3 attorney marketing mistakes you might be making and tips on how you can avoid them.

1. You Don’t Know Your Target Audience

The first and most important aspect of law firm marketing is knowing your target audience. This goes beyond knowing your customers’ demographics. You should also learn about their problems, needs, everyday lives, and internet habits.

If you don’t have a detailed buyer persona, you’ll end up spending valuable time and money marketing to the wrong people. If you already have an established customer base, ask for their feedback and opinions. This will help you understand them better, improve your services, and target your paid ads better.

Also, make sure your online presence answers people’s questions quickly. If your website doesn’t speak to them and they don’t connect with you on social media, you’ve missed the mark.

2. Your Website and SEO Are Outdated

In the digital age, having a company website is a must if you want to attract customers. The website should be modern, fast, and easy to navigate. Since most users access the internet from a smartphone or a tablet, make sure your website is mobile-optimized. If it’s not, you might get penalized by the search engines.

For marketing of legal services to work, you should also pay attention to SEO. Ranking for specific keywords is a long process, especially in niche services. For example, if you’re a car accident lawyer, create content around this topic to educate and help people. When search engines analyze your website and determine that your content is of value, you’ll start ranking higher.

3. You Don’t Have a Social Media Presence

One of the main rules of online marketing for law firms is having an active social media presence. Most people will search for your name or company online first. They will look at your social media profiles and the content you publish, and read reviews from other customers.

Your branding should be uniform on all platforms, but the things you post should be different on each profile. This is because the audience might be different on each social network, and so is the content they’re interested in.

You can post legal updates, blog posts, team or employee photos, and even customer testimonials. Social media marketing is a great way to run paid ads and reach an even wider audience.

Avoid The Most Common Attorney Marketing Fails With These Tips!

Whether you’re a small local law firm or a well-established corporation, attracting new customers comes down to successful online marketing.

These tips will help you avoid the most common attorney marketing mistakes and reach the right audience for your business.

Need more tips on attracting new customers? We have tons of articles right here on our website covering social media, lead generation, and SEO.

10 of the Worst Marketing Fails That You Should Avoid at All Costs

Have you ever seen an ad that made you vow off the product or service forever? If so, then you’re not alone.

What makes a marketing campaign go viral, and what makes them flop?

Keep reading to learn about the top ten worst marketing fails that you never want to replicate.

1. Making Insensitive Products or Statements

One of the worst marketing failures is making a tone-deaf comment or product that can’t be unsaid or unseen. If you think a product or statement could be offensive, then it’s better not to make it or say it.

The recent fallout after Gucci made a controversial sweater resembling blackface proves this. Gucci admitted they didn’t understand the sensitivities of the black community.

Now, they’ll have to pour hundreds of dollars into sensitivity training. They’ve also outraged countless individuals.

2. Tossing Support at a Popular Cause

Bad marketing doesn’t have to be insensitive. It can happen by misreading a popular cause or social movement.

No one knows this better than Pepsi who failed at this in 2017. In their ad, Kendall Jenner joins a protest before giving Pepsi to a policeman.

This all happened during the height of Black Lives Matter protests, so it didn’t go over too well. After overwhelming criticism, Pepsi pulled the ad and apologized.

3. The Art of Online Trolling

Traditional marketing has taken a backseat to the newest method: troll marketing.

What is it?

It’s when a business imitates an online troll to deliver hilarious tweets or posts. Why? Posts that are controversial and strike up conflict get more attention.

If you haven’t heard about Wendy’s Twitter account, then you’re missing out.

Online trolling is an art, and it’s a thin line to walk on. IHOP learned that the hard way when they suffered a terrible marketing fail last year.

They tried to troll everyone by pretending to change their name to IHOB. They thought the prank would draw attention, but it ended up flopping hard.

Be careful with the latest trend of troll marketing. You don’t want to become another example among bad marketing campaigns.

4. Failing to Handle Customer’s Reviews

When looking for products or services online, reviews make a major impact. The worst thing a company can do is fail to handle these reviews in a proper way.

Companies with bad marketing don’t realize the power of testimonials and polls. You need to find ways to highlight and promote positive reviews.

At the same time, you’ll need to manage the negative reviews. A bad review, even when fabricated, can have serious repercussions.

5. Spray and Pray Marketing Fails

The spray and pray method means throwing everything at your target and hoping for the best. In the past, businesses used cold calling and mailers.

Today, these methods are ineffective. Millennials are 44% more likely to disengage with companies that use these tactics.

Instead, you should direct your marketing efforts towards a specific target of customers.

If you want to learn more about the disadvantages of the spray and pray approach, then read more here.

6. Relying on Social Media Ads

Using social media for marketing purposes is very effective. Companies with bad marketing strategies think that means relying on ads.

Don’t make this mistake. Your social media strategy needs to be much bigger than that. An effective social media ad must be:

• Creative
• Targeted towards the right audience
• Powerful enough to move your customer to action

Don’t think you can make an ad, publish it, and get massive results. Social media marketing takes a lot of work.

You’ll also need to have a relevant profile that links to any advertisement. That builds trust between you and your customers.

7. Don’t Break the Law

It kind of goes without saying, but never break the law with your marketing tactics. Guerilla marketing is a new method that involves walking that thin line.

Understand that getting involved in such antics could result in jail time or fines.

During the 2004 Olympics, one man used these guerilla marketing techniques. He adorned a purple tutu and wrote “GoldenPalace.com” on his stomach.

He jumped into the Olympic pool and caused such a stir that he got arrested.

8. Watch out for Deceptive Advertising

You have to be careful when advertising your product or service. You never want your marketing campaigns to be misleading or construed as deceptive.

Todd Davis became infamous during the Lifelock disaster. He had an idea to publish his own social security number to promote his security services.

In the end, Davis became the victim of identity theft and he faced several lawsuits.

9. Never Exploit a Tragedy

Associating your product or brand with a tragedy is never a good idea.

Mark Zuckerberg found that out during a live broadcast. He was showing the power of the Oculus Rift technology by “visiting” Puerto Rico.

The problem was that he did this right after the Hurricane Maria disaster. Seeing Zuck’s avatar floating around the ravished areas wasn’t a good image.

10. Giant or Unrealistic Promotions

Giving away free stuff always boosts sales. Do not make the mistake of underestimating the power of free things.

The promise of free things unfulfilled can lead to riots, deaths, and an all-out war against your brand.  Don’t believe me? Ask Pepsi about their Philippines “Number Fever” promotion.

Each can of soda had a unique code printed on it. A random draw would determine the winning number and who would receive one million pesos.

The problem? There were over 480,116 people who had the winning number in the end. To put it in simple terms, Pepsi is not welcome in the Philippines anymore.

Avoiding Marketing Pitfalls

Marketing in the modern-day era is no easy task. You’ll have to avoid these ten marketing fails and more to be successful. 

Don’t get discouraged if you do make a marketing blunder. Many successful brands have made a comeback after such missteps.

Are you interested in learning more valuable marketing tips? Head over to our digital marketing blog now to access dozens of articles for free.