I recently had a strategy session with a talented coach who planned on launching a year-long coaching group for executive women. She worked hard on her marketing, offered several free teleclasses and spent a lot of time writing her sales page… but her program didn’t fill.

Naturally, she was disappointed.

Fortunately, she also realized that failure is part of success. The key thing is to learn from your failures, fine-tune your strategies and actions and then try again.

Please don’t fall into the trap I see so many coaches make: Trying something once and if it doesn’t work out the way you hoped you give up and move on to something else. This is a huge mistake!

If the coach had not offered the group program, she never would have received all the knowledge and insight she gained when we analyzed why the group did not fill.

She is now well-prepared to do some market research, make the necessary modifications and offer her group again.

In addition, the coach’s efforts were not in vain. One of the attendees on her free teleclasses was so impressed with the coach and her program that she inquired about it being offered as a one day workshop as part of a University’s continuing education program. The coach is now excitedly preparing to deliver the workshop and looking forward to a $4,000 payday!

You will fail more times than you’d like and even though it’s not fun, it’s necessary. As Sochiro Honda, the founder of Honda Motor Company said, “Success is 99% Failure.”

Don’t be afraid to fail.