A Mistake Turned Success
We all have a tendency to take mistakes straight to heart. The problem with doing so is that we make our mistakes out to be failures, when they are not. They're just mistakes. We’ve learned to laugh (sometimes even crack up) when we make them. Which happens more often than not. I’m sure you’re just dying to know what I screwed up at this point!
Hang tight, I'm getting to it. Back in the Summer, Sheryl listed an awesome commercial property on Plantside Drive.(Click the link below to learn more about this sold listing.) We decided to host an open house event during the week so that brokers and business owners could tour the property and have lunch on us. We bought Chick-fil-a catering for our visitors to enjoy after their tour and the day couldn’t have been more picture perfect.
2216 Plantside Drive
If you haven’t read about our Chick-fil-a event, we wrote a whole long post about it. Check our blog to catch up!
In the process of marketing our event, we printed over 200 postcards to mail out to area business owners, inviting them to our open house. Well… they don’t teach ‘Post Office 101’ in school, but they obviously should.
Long story short, the addresses were oriented the wrong way on the postcard. All 200 and something postcards bounced back. One of our biggest marketing efforts for this event, boomeranged straight back into our mail box just 2 days before the event. In that moment, we could almost hear the universe shouting “HAHA, NOPE!” After somewhat laughing at our fate, we were soon getting creative with how we could still use our invites and get the word out as best as possible.
So yes, we laugh at stuff like this. Laughing is the best way to discard the drama and get down to what it is we actually want to accomplish.
The very next day we found ourselves storming the nearby industrial park, armed with our rejected invitations, and ready to spread the word! Our invites might have bounced back but, guess what? So did we. We spent several hours walking from door to door, talking about our event and engaging local business owners. We received tons of positive feedback and heard from several people that they were outgrowing their current space and might be interested in upgrading.
Two days later, we hosted our event. We were so pleased with the turnout, and among the attendees were several of the business owners we had hand-delivered invitations to. One of those business owners just happened to become the buyer of the property. A few short months later and this sale is now officially closed.
And there you have it. Small mistakes do not equal failure. Sometimes, even though we can’t see what’s ahead, our mistakes are actually moving us down a pathway to success. You never know what great destination a redirection is taking you towards, so we’ve learned to simply follow the current.
