Don't Be Like Me

I am just beginning this business therapy consulting business and I am wondering about some sales truths as I go about getting the word out. The sales truth is that people like to buy success.

But what do I do to build my credentials as someone to seek out for business advice? While I've attained some successes--running my business--I've learned more from, and am more notable for, my failures--crashing the aforementioned business.

My so-called friends (who have not hit either the same level of success or Ramen-noodle subsistance failure as me) advise me that people will not seek me out for consulting because I did not get my company into the Fortune 100.

So do I focus on the success I had in life? I have done a lot of things I could be very proud of: gotten my memoir published, run a $10 million company, tripled sales at three firms, and got myself out of my home town to live in New York, London and Prague.

Or do I highlight that I've lost everything and that exotic summer in Prague was spent eating dollar sandwiches and sleeping on a concrete floor?

Which is the message that gets me clients?
Which is ultimately of more use to my clients?
Which makes me feel better about myself?

I could answer all these questions both ways because the salesman's crutch is sometimes self-deprication. Or, as a boss of mine used to call it, "The Broken Winged Duckling Sale." Buy from me because I'm so sad.

On the other hand, it is precisely my failures that give me perspective what you should be avoiding in your business.

So perhaps, in this instance, failure, or surviving failure, is the truest success and the best possible marketing.