5 Easy Steps To Turn Lemons Into Lemonade.
You will never be the perfect entrepreneur. No matter how hard you work to avoid catastrophes… at some point, disasters will happen. At times, you will look bad, and your reputation will be injured. But, that doesn’t mean you or your company have to suffer long-term repercussions because of it.
Here are some steps for embracing your own humanity, and turning “bad” situations into incredible, marketing opportunities.
Step 1- Laugh at yourself and your mistakes. (Getting upset about the situation won’t fix things. Look at this as an opportunity instead.)
Step 2- Fix the disaster, tenaciously.
Step 3- Offer the injured customers or prospects even more than they expect. (If done properly, these individuals may become your biggest fans.)
Step 4- Use the situation to fix your current systems. (Making a mistake is alright. Repeating that mistake can be devastating.)
Step 5- Freely share these experiences in marketing messages, blogs, webinars, or as a “reason” to have another sale or promotion.
People are generally more forgiving than they seem. If you are willing to “expose” your weaknesses, your contacts will feel your honesty and sincerity. The harder you try to be the “perfect” small business owner (and hide your errors), the more detached from your contacts you become. And, the more likely they are to mistrust you.
Enjoy your imperfections and learn to use them to your advantage!
Leap of the Week: Next time you mess up, for whatever reason, try being more transparent about it and experience the benefits of building a great brand culture by being human and true. Because honesty builds trust and trust builds a fan club.
About The Author: 
Love this post.
It is so true – this year I am laughing and celebrating myself. I am currently recreating my business model, business plan and brand strategy because over the last two years I have produced a website that does not reach my ‘user-experience’ expectations.
The celebrating comes from all the learning – that I have created for myself.
The laughing comes in the joy of ’starting’ over and gigglin’ at the mistakes I made in the previous attempts.
Time to start from ground zero.
I will ‘blow-up’ my site at the end of the year (well planned and architected) launching a new and vastly improved version!! I can’t wait – are you excited to see what appears? If so, follow me throughout the process at http://www.twitter.com/reneevations
Yap! totally hear you there girl…I am in the same boat with my online goal + process tracking tool. As entrepreneurs, it always amazes me how fast we can evolve and grow. Yesterday’s direction, which was once “all that and a bag of chips” is today obsolete! or…like you, over a certain period of months, many pivotal shifts happened and suddenly, what worked not too long ago is now the bain of our existence! ha! ha!…and you are right…we got to be able to embrace it, laugh about it and most of all, learn from it. Thanks for sharing and yes…I will be following your progress on twitter.