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Writer's pictureFinancial Marketing Pros

Pro Tip #28: The Courage to Fail, The Courage to Succeed

Joe Bayliss and Roy Furr


“Most advisors…  They just don’t have courage.”


We were speaking with one of our advisors. He’s in a major metro area. Multiple offices around the city. Plus branch offices in other cities, identified as growth opportunities. Always aiming higher.


Today, he spends $100,000-plus on advertising every single month.


He was talking about why the vast majority of advisors just don’t grow beyond the snail’s pace that can be achieved from networking and referrals. We’d been talking about an advisor who had run a successful TV show, and got great results… Then just stopped running it.


We’ve seen it over and over again. Give two advisors the same marketing or advertising. Watch it get comparable results in early testing.


  • One advisor runs with it – pouring every dollar they can into it, saying yes to every opportunity – for as long as it keeps working.

  • The other advisor pulls it – unable to handle spending even a fraction of what the first advisor does – even when they’ve seen how their marketing dollars turn into clients.


There’s a reason exceptional advisors grow to hundreds of millions in production every year… While most others don’t.


His word, not ours: “Courage.”


When we look at the many clients we have who grew from running a handful of ads into annual marketing budgets of $1 million or more… 


Those who grow… Have courage. But what does that mean?


Because when we think of courage, we often think of those courageous acts that lead to success. 


We watch a movie – a hero’s journey – where the hero draws from a deep well of courage, and they win in the end… It feels good. That’s what we expect from courage.


That’s what kind of courage we want: The courage to succeed.


But here’s the thing – while success can come from courage, it’s NOT courage if you know you’re going to win. 


It’s only courage when you could fail – and you act anyway.


If you know you will succeed, you’re in your comfort zone. No courage necessary. Go outside of your comfort zone, and you could fail. That’s where real courage is found.


And most exceptional success isn’t born of a single act of courage. It’s showing up and acting with courage – stepping outside your comfort zone – every single day.


Take that TV show…


The first act of courage is to simply test it.


Even in a smaller market, you could easily commit $30,000-$40,000 between TV production and media buys before you can have confidence a show will generate leads. And even then, you probably won’t have ROI yet, because of the longer sales cycle in financial services.


Continuing to run even a successful show can be a second and bigger act of courage.


Maybe you have a group of new leads in the pipeline, but without production yet, your inner bean counter starts screaming… “You’re already in for $30k with no new business yet, why the heck would you commit to spending even more?” Even if you have a bunch of leads and appointments, you’re not certain that investing more will be successful. To double down now – with failure still possible – requires even greater courage.


Side note: We don’t believe in throwing good money after bad. If you’re getting zero results, that is likely a reason to stop at the end of a test. What we’re talking about here is continuing to plant seeds when the last crop is still growing.


A lot of advisors will take that first act of courage. It’s the exceptional ones who take the second, bigger one.


You must have the courage to fail, if you want the courage to succeed.


Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach talks about the 4 Cs.


  • First you COMMIT to taking an action outside of your comfort zone.

  • Then you act with COURAGE knowing failure is possible.

  • This gives you COMPETENCE about the results of your action.

  • This gives you CONFIDENCE to commit to the next action.


This is a continuous feedback loop. The more you commit to and execute with courage, the more competence and confidence you gain. And this allows you to commit to even greater things, which require more courage, and so on…


Eventually you become confident in the process itself – confident in yourself that if you can act with courage when failure is possible and even likely, you’ll eventually figure out what you need to do to create the successes you want.


And this is what we see in those advisors that grow to exceptional success.


They’re willing to act with courage, testing things that may fail. Knowing that when they do find things that work, the success will be worth it, many times over.


Good news – you can also lean on the competence of others, to make even courageous activities more likely to succeed. Doesn’t mean you won’t need the courage – it just means it’s more likely to get you the result you want in the end.


Do you have the courage to fail – and the courage to achieve exceptional success?


Request a marketing audit and we can help you find your biggest opportunities to generate leads and clients through advertising and marketing. There’s no cost or obligation from this first conversation – we’re simply looking to see whether it’s a mutual fit.


Because of the nature of our services, we only work with clients who spend a minimum of $250,000 per year on advertising and marketing, and are in a top 60 metro area.



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