Fail As Early As Possible: The Proofreading Mistake that Cost Me Weeks of Revenue

Before digital marketing was a college major or job title, I converted customers the old fashioned way. Real world trial and error, and making monumental mistakes. The most valuable thing I learned about success; you learn by getting it wrong.   

My first major blunder was on my employer's dime at just 18 years old, I was all-in at a specialized electronics start up. But then I accidentally ordered 10,000 units of a part when we only needed 100. They absorbed my mistake with humor, but I suspect 25 years later, they still never had to restock.  

At 23 I was a budding solopreneur, opening my first beauty salon. The marketing team was me, my inkjet printer, a one page website, and my mother telling everyone she knew. This was where I learned conversion, despite having no idea what I was doing. But the phone was ringing and the copy was converting. 

Things got quiet, so I spent my scant double figure marketing budget printing 5000 flyers in my living room. An old school approach, but it gave me 6% callback rates in the past. I walked miles every day for a week, dropping at 5000 homes, long country driveways and all.    

And then? Not a single call. 

Was the offer wrong this time? Were my flyers too obviously amateur? It was the first time something hadn’t worked. 

Weeks later my mother was at the bank. Between deposits and small town chit-chat, the teller complimented her nails. Always my best sales person, she jumped into action to peddle my wares. Except the teller had already heard of me, tried to call, and got a disconnected line. 

A one digit phone number typo on 5000 flyers. I’d spent a week pounding the pavement for nothing. Weeks of potential new revenue gone. But I never did it again. 

We can learn marketing theory in school. And courses are great for the nitty-gritty of KPIs. But nothing comes close to bombing hard in the real world, preferably as early as possible.