Why failure helps create better marketers
The word ‘failure’ conjures up many negative connotations, but it shouldn’t always be seen a bad thing because marketers often learn far more when things go wrong.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Often when starting out marketers are eager to please and progress up the career ladder, but this can result in them focusing on the wrong things.
It can also put pressure on marketers to excel at everything they do first time, which in addition to being unrealistic could also prevent them from taking risks.
Pedro Earp, AB InBev’s chief marketing and ZX Ventures officer, for example, was so intent on succeeding that he didn’t leave any room for error. But he believes taking risks and failing earlier on in his career would actually have helped him develop at a faster rate.
“One question I get a lot is, ‘What are the big mistakes or the big failures you have had in your career?’ And when I take a look at my early days there are not a lot, which is a bad thing,” he says. “Because I think if I had failed more at the beginning of my career I probably would have learnt more earlier.”
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