Al Ries and Jack Trout in The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing list law 19 as The Law of Failure. They admonish that failure is to be expected and accepted.

Admitting a mistake and not doing anything about it is a bad career move. Better to recognize your failures early and cut your losses.

Example: American Motors should have abandoned passenger cars and focused on Jeep. IBM should have dropped copiers and Xerox should have dropped computers years before they finally recognized their mistakes.

When we do a new business pitch, potential clients are often surprised to learn that we don’t have an in-house graphics department. We prefer to work with a handful of good design firms that we can select for their expertise. For instance, we do a lot of work related to architectural and building products. We utilize firms that know those markets. Similarly, we choose photographers that specialize in architectural shots.

As American Motors, IBM and Xerox learned, you can’t be all things to all people. At Yearick-Millea, we know our strengths. We’re marketing strategists and writers. We’re also good project managers – from initial concept to successful execution.

As Ries and Trout said, failure is to be expected and accepted. But when you play to your strengths, you significantly reduce your chance for failure.

– Ralph Yearick is CEO of Yearick-Millea