Keep at it

by John Pilmer

In today’s business environment, success may seem very elusive to some CEOs. Businesses that have been around for years either have closed their doors or find those doors creaking shut. Bank empires have crumbled like an old cookie, and the well of money has all but dried up for some.

Yet, amid failure we see new ideas and businesses emerging. So, what is failure? In a recent workshop led by Garrett White exploring our “Soul Purpose,” I felt compelled to consider the role of success and failure in developing leaders. The faithful dictionary defines failure as “an act or instance of failing or proving unsuccessful; a lack of success.” But, is failure really all that bad?

Maybe we could ask a man who failed in business in 1831. He was defeated after running for state legislator in ’32. He tried another business in ’33. It failed. His fiancé died in ’35, and he had a nervous breakdown in ’36. In ’43 he ran for Congress and was defeated. He tried again in ’48 and was defeated once more. He tried running for the Senate in ’55 and he lost once again. The next year he ran for vice president and lost. In ’59 he ran for the Senate a second time and was defeated. Then in 1860, the man who signed his name Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States. Lucky for our nation that Lincoln did not call it quits after numerous failures.

How about another example? We could look at the man whose teachers said he was “too stupid to learn anything.” He was also fired from his first two jobs for being “non-productive.” Then, as an inventor, he made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Thomas Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

The difference between history’s greatest accomplishments and its most staggering failures is often the will to persevere. There is no written law that says “when you fail you must quit.” Early in my career, the great sales trainer Tom Hopkins tutored me. More accurately, I should say my boss at the time, Richard Smith, the visionary CEO at Smith Administrators, sent me for a day to sit at the feet of Mr. Hopkins. I subsequently pored over and digested his book, How to Master the Art of Selling.

Although I was the assistant to the CEO, not in direct sales, I tried to internalize lessons I have used in every job since then. I learned how to ask leading and open-ended questions, how to test close, the alternative close. What I learned has increased my success in everything from job interviews to closing new PR clients.

Perhaps the greatest lesson Hopkins imparted was his perspective on rejection and failure. He taught us to “never see failure as failure, but only as the game we must play to win — as an opportunity to practice our technique and improve our performance.” He taught that sales, and ultimately life, are largely numbers games. You have to go through some rejection and failure to get to the prize.

Some of the greatest accomplishments in the world have come from those who have failed. Failure is not an end, but rather a chance to reevaluate and try again with even more knowledge, more experience and more zeal. Although a business may close its doors or you may lose your job, it is not the end. Rather it could be the beginning of the next great world success.

John Pilmer, APR, is founder and president of PilmerPR. In its sixth year, the award-winning PilmerPR team provides enterprise-level public relations expertise at a small business price. The company is a 2008 recipient of the Provo/Orem Chamber of Commerce Arthur V. Watkins award for excellence. PilmerPR was recently recognized at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., for its work in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).