If At First You Don’t Succeed
As we canter worringly into a time when only instant solutions will do, I was pleasantly reminded of the power of persistence recently. Developers of hydrogen fuel cells (ITM Power) took 6 years and 25,000 attempts before cracking the problem of a safe and simple zero-emission car power solution.
I’ve blogged before about removing the mindset of instant success (see my Life On Mars post) but was moved to try and see other examples of such long-term thinking.
The original Life On Mars tv show took 7 years and 36 script re-writes to make it to screen
The Beatles’ several knock-backs seemingly included their eventual label turning them down 4 times first
Harry Potter suffered ‘no’ on twelve occasions before gaining a publishing deal
James Dyson was famously turned down by every major appliance builder for his revolutionary cleaner, which he also took 15 years and 5,127 prototypes to make launch-ready
Even as credit crunch fatigue gives way to recession realism, the world won’t stop turning. Although buyers will be harder to find, they will still be out there. Be prepared to make more calls and manage bigger funnels.